First Eurofighter Typhoon in Service at the Italian Air Force

Alenia Aeronautica, ROME: Four Eurofighters have taken off this morning from Grosseto and have landed at Gioia del Colle’s Air Base. They are the first aircraft assigned to the XII Fighter Group of the 36th Air Wing of the big military base in the Puglia Region. With the entry into service at the 36th Air Wing, the conversion of ItAF’s third Group on the new fighter has started, after the XX and IX, both belonging to Grosseto’s 4th Wing. 
 
The Typhoon is the main collaboration programme in the European history in the defence field. Result of the partnership between four countries: Italy, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom, the Eurofighter programme employs 120.000 persons all over Europe and represents the state-of-the-art of the aerospace technology, with major fall-backs on other industrial sectors with a positive economic impact of over €40 billions registered in the consortium’s member countries. 
 
A total of 707 Eurofighter Typhoons has been ordered so far by six air forces, the four of the countries participating in the programme plus Austria and Saudi Arabia. This is a figure that marks the Typhoon aircraft as the most widespread fighter in the world, on top of being an aircraft able – thanks to its operational capabilities – of assuring a marked superiority against any present and future aerial threat. 
 
As far as technical support and maintenance a team of 15 specialists of Alenia Aeronautica will support the ItAF technical team in the initial phase of transition to the new aircraft. 
 
The XII Group will be fully operational by spring of 2009. This way the Italian Air Force will be able to count on two fully operating Air Defence’ Groups, the XII in Gioia and the IX in Grosseto, for the surveillance of the national air boundary, replacing the F-16s currently in service. 
 
The new aircraft’s arrival has also been the occasion for the XII Group to celebrate the 90 years since its creation, which had taken place at Belluno airport in 1917.