With the end of the PIA – Pooling Implementing Arrangement – signed in 2018 by the Defense and the US Marine Corps and the return flight with subsequent landing on the aircraft carrier Cavour of the first two F-35B delivered to the Italian Navy (the 4-01 and the 4-02), short take-off and vertical landing version (STOVL – Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing), another significant page was written for the Armed Forces and for the almost 110-year history of Naval Aviation and the collaboration, uninterrupted for more than 30 years, between the men and women of the Italian Navy and the aerotactic component of the Marine Corps of the United States of America.
During the ceremony held on November 29, at the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort (South Carolina – USA), in the presence of the Commander of the Air Forces of the Italian Navy, Rear Admiral Marco Casapieri and the Commanders of the Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 31 and the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron (VMFAT) 501, were ideally retraced the numerous activities, which lasted 5 years, carried out in the PIA riverbed and which allowed to form the first significant proportion of pilots and technicians destined to operate the 5th generation F-35B aircraft.
At the end of the ceremony, the Marine Corps also wanted to decorate a “wolf”, as the pilots of the Embarked Aircraft Group (GRUPAER) are defined, with the “Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal” for the activities carried out and the brilliant results obtained during more than 3 years of assignment to the VMFAT 501.
The success of the transfer flight from Beaufort to the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Cavour, including a technical stopover at the airport of Lajes (Azores Archipelago), was the result of a close inter-force cooperation and coordination between the Italian Navy and the Italian Air Force. The Atlantic flight was in fact supported by a KC-767A refueling aircraft of the 14 ° Stormo dell’Aeronautica Militare that responded to the needs of logistic transport and in-flight refueling (performed more than 20 supplies), by a C-130J aircraft of the 46 ^ Air Brigade of Pisa and by a P-72A coming from the 41 ° Stormo di Sigonella that ensured the Search activities and Rescue (SAR) during the transfer route. The security framework of personnel and aircraft was ensured by a team of Fusiliers of the 3rd Regiment of the San Marco Marine Brigade.
During the phases prior to landing on the flagship of the Italian Navy, which took place last December 16, the two F-35Bs returning from the USA were escorted by a formation of AV-8B+ aircraft as evidence of the important transition process underway between the 4th and 5th generation of jet aircraft that the Navy is facing. With the return of the two aircraft from the USA and with the imminent delivery of the fourth aircraft to the Navy, Naval Aviation continues the path towards the achievement, scheduled for 2024, of the Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in the use of the 5th generation aircraft from the aircraft carrier Cavour, which represents the maximum expression of sea-based expeditionary capacity. (Ability to project, autonomously, the national military instrument in very distant areas to protect national interests and the collective security of the Alliance).
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