Rome 12 May 2015
The Royal Netherlands Air Force's Pilots will train in Italy on Finmeccanica - Alenia Aermacchi's M-346 trainers in service with the Italian Air Force.
In fact, during the European Air Chief Conference (EURAC), which yearly gathers Chiefs of Air Forces from EU Countries and currently held in Expo Milan 2015, the Chief of the Italian Air Force, Lieutenant General Pasquale Preziosa, and the Executive Commander of Koninklijke Luchtmacht (the Royal Netherlands Air Force), Lieutenant General Alexander Schnitger, signed a cooperation agreement in the field of flight training, at the presence of the Italian Ministry of Defense, Roberta Pinotti.
The agreement envisages the detachment of an instructor and two student pilots of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, to be stationed at ItAF's Lecce-Galatina AFB Flight School, which is considered as a center of excellence as far as military pilots training is concerned.
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 Royal Netherlands Air Force's Pilots will follow the standard training programmes 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.
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), the new training programme is in fact evaluated with great interest by several air forces that plan to operate new-generation aircraft.
Ordered by Italy, Singapore, Poland and Israel, Finmeccanica - Alenia Aermacchi's 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.