The occasion was the primary one for the bottom, house of the 6° Stormo (Wing) of the Italian Air Power.
Within the afternoon on Jun. 21, 2023, Ghedi Air Base, in northern Italy, held the primary Spotter Day organized by the 6° Stormo (Wing) of the Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Power) to permit aviation fans and photographers to shoot images and movies of the local-based F-35A of the 102° Gruppo (Squadron) and Tornado IDS and ECR plane of the 154° and 155° Gruppo, in addition to one AMX-T and two Eurofighters with the 132° Gruppo of the 51° Stormo, from Istrana Air Base.
In 2022, with the arrival of the first aircraft, the 6° Stormo has grow to be the second Italian Air Power Wing to function the F-35A; the opposite one is the 32° Stormo, based mostly at Amendola AB, whose child-unit, the 13° Gruppo (Squadron) has been working with the fifth technology plane since 2016 and achieved IOC (Preliminary Operational Functionality) in 2018.
Among the many Twister squadrons, the 102° Gruppo (for many years, the Twister OCU – Operational Conversion Unit) was the primary to transition to the brand new F-35A. The 154° Gruppo must also obtain the Lightning II plane sooner or later, whereas the the 155° Gruppo “Black Panthers” will proceed to fly the Twister ECR within the SEAD/DEAD (Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses) position till the sort is retired and the mission is taken over by the F-35.
The method will take a number of years and, in the intervening time, joint missions that see the cooperation between F-35s and Tornados, are conducted almost routinely, to facilitate the combination between the 4th and fifth technology belongings.
In the course of the Spotter Day, photographers and cameramen got the chance to take pictures and movies of all of the belongings working from Ghedi AB as they taxied, launched and recovered. Our contributor Mirco Adami was there and took the pictures you will discover on this put up.
David Cenciotti is a journalist based mostly in Rome, Italy. He’s the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of many world’s most well-known and skim army aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for main worldwide magazines, together with Air Forces Month-to-month, Fight Plane, and lots of others, masking aviation, protection, warfare, trade, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown a number of fight planes with totally different air forces. He’s a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Power, a non-public pilot and a graduate in Pc Engineering. He has written 5 books and contributed to many extra ones.
