The Royal Netherlands Air Force’s Pilots will train in Italy on Alenia Aermacchi’s jets in service with the Italian Air Force, thanks to the agreement that has been signed by the Chiefs of Staff of the two Air Forces in Milan last week that envisages the detachment of an instructor and two student pilots of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, to be stationed at ItAF’s Lecca-Galatina AFB Flight School.
It is the two countries’ intention that this first group of pilots represent the starting point for a fruitful cooperation to be extended for years to come.
The instructor and the two students will follow the standard training programs of the Italian military pilots. The training system is already acknowledged and appreciated by other countries, which have sent their personnel to train at the Lecce-Galatina school.
In fact, the new training program, recently reconfigured to catch up with operational and technological advances, thanks to the entry in service of the new Finmeccanica-Alenia’s M-346 trainers (called T-346 by the Italian Air Force), is evaluated with great interest by several air forces that plan to operate new-generation aircraft.
Background Information
Alenia Aermacchi’ M-346 is the most advanced trainer aircraft currently available on the market and is the only one purposefully conceived to train pilots who will fly on the latest-generation high-performance military aircraft.
The M-346 – ordered by Italy, Singapore, Poland and Israel – has won all the international bids in which it participated, achieving to-date a total order of 59 aircraft
