The AM 2024 Calendar was presented at Palazzo Aeronautica. General Goretti: “We have reached the 100-year milestone with a technologically advanced Air Force. In this year of “100+”, the challenges of the present and future await us.”

It was presented today, at Palazzo Aeronautica, in Rome, in the presence of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Air Force General Luca Goretti, the AM Calendar 2024. “100+1” the name chosen for this new editorial project to retrace the journey together shared with Italians in 2023, a year that the Armed Force dedicated to the celebrations of the Centenary of its constitution.

In the year that is drawing to a close, the Air Force has indeed embarked on a “journey” full of events, organised throughout Italy, to tell its story by looking back at the past and showing citizens the Armed Force of today and its objectives for the future. This is where the desire to tell, through the images chosen for “100+1 AM Calendar 2024, the highlights of a journey punctuated by events that have brought the Blue Army into the squares, onto the beaches, and into the most representative places in our country.

“The cover image for this calendar – The Chief of Staff said, referring to the photo that shows the Frecce Tricolori flying over the city of Rome – physically represents what the Air Force is: a compact armed force that plays as a team, a national pride born from the passion and sacrifice of all its personnel. One hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye, and in this “100+1” year, the challenges of the present and future await us, with an armed force that has always made, is making, and will always make its natural and undisputed expertise in the aerospace sector available to all those who aspire to operate in the third dimension.

“2023 will remain a milestone in the history of the Air Force.”, General Goretti has added. We celebrated this first Centenary with enthusiasm, pride and dignity, sharing our journey with Italians and, at the same time, with the entire Defence sector and with the most important areas of civil society, scientific and academic research, culture, the aerospace industry, and information. We have reached the milestone of 100 years with an Air Force on the cutting edge of technology, equipped with highly specialised professionals who, with the same pioneering spirit of the early years, are projecting towards the future to continue to be relevant in a particularly challenging geopolitical context. Now we look to the future. In the coming year, we will be engaged abroad on various fronts: for example, we will be in the United States and Canada to represent Italy to the world through the National Aerobatic Team and on that occasion, the Frecce Tricolori aircraft will also perform in Los Angeles, for the arrival of the Nave Vespucci, currently engaged in a world tour, demonstrating that Defence is compact and united even beyond national borders. Following this, the General reminded those present of the upcoming flight to the International Space Station next January, with Colonel Walter Villadei, who is engaged in the Ax-3 mission with Axiom Space. “why – concluded – we started with “Paper Wings” but we are ending up in space, as that is where we must and want to be. We must train the young people of tomorrow so that they are up to speed with technology, because the tools can be built and shaped but the mind must be able to fly in exactly the same way as technology, this is the challenge of tomorrow.

The AM 2024 Calendar features an ideal journey, reliving the most important initiatives that marked the celebration of the Italian Air Force's first 100 years of history, and which have helped bring the Armed Force, for whom it operates daily, 365 days a year, even closer to the citizens. From the exhibition “Ali di carta” (Wings of Paper) dedicated to the most incredible inventions of the last century, cinema and flight; to the historical Symposium in the Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, from the military ceremony on the Terrazza del Pincio, on March 28th, sealed by an air flyover of all the Armed Force's aircraft over the city of Rome, to the AeroSpace Power Conference at the Nuvola di Fuksas, an event dedicated to new technologies and future developments in the aerospace field; from the airshow in Pratica di Mare, an air show that, through the performances of still-functioning historical aircraft and latest-generation planes, alongside the concurrent historical exhibition “Campo 100”, allowed for an immersive experience with the Italian Air Force, allowing people to experience firsthand the capabilities of the AM in service of the community; to the inauguration of the AM Historical Museum in Vigna di Valle, renewed in its exhibition and concept, capable of attracting younger generations more effectively thanks to the use of cutting-edge technologies; from the Technical Scientific Symposium at the Air Force Academy in Pozzuoli, where authoritative experts gathered to discuss the theme of hypersonic capability development, to the acrobatic season of the Frecce Tricolori, which flew over every Italian region from May to November as part of the initiative called “AM abbraccia l'Italia” (AM embraces Italy).

As every year, the collaboration between the Air Force and Giunti Editore will make it possible to distribute the 2024 Calendar through the extensive network of bookshops, with over 250 GIUNTI AL PUNTO stores, making it available throughout Italy to enthusiasts and the wider public. The publishing project was promoted by Defence Services which, some time ago, inaugurated a new path of valorisation of the Armed Forces calendars for the dissemination of Defence culture through distribution and sale in Giunti bookshops.

The 2024 AM Calendar will also be on sale at Shop Official Italian Air Force Amazon www.amazon.it/aeronauticamilitare

It is possible to review the presentation of the AM Calendar 2023 on the Aeronautica Militare YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYo5Aw5Dvp4