With the end of 2023, the Centenary of the Italian Air Force comes to a close. It has been a year full of daily commitments both nationally and internationally, serving citizens every day and with an eye towards future challenges.
With 2023, the Centenary of the Italian Air Force, 100 years of life celebrated with various outreach initiatives and representative events which, starting with the due tribute to the history and courage of the air pioneers, have allowed citizens to be told about the professionalism and excellence acquired over time by the Armed Force, bringing them ever closer to the world of aviation.
A 2023 where the Training and operational commitments have continuously supported the country, deploying resources and strategies for citizen safety and defence, ensuring the control and surveillance of national airspace and Euro-Atlantic and Mediterranean airspace, and protecting vital national interests abroad, within the scope of numerous international Operations and Missions.
51 scramble
Twelve months in which aircraft, flight crews and technical personnel participated in the most important overseas military missions, conducted by the Defence Staff through the Joint Operations Command, and have been called upon to intervene in numerous parts of the world. Thanks to adherent logistics, the unique capabilities and expertise of air and space power have been deployed thousands of kilometres from national borders: from Kuwait to Qatar, from Antarctica to the hotspots of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, areas that today draw the world's attention and jeopardise geopolitical stability.
Over the course of 2023, the Italian Air Force's fighter aircraft were scrambled on alert – in technical jargon Scramble – Ben 39 times to ensure respect for NATO borders Poland, Romania e Lithuania, where the aircraft and AM personnel were deployed as part of operations Air Policing, which Italy participates in for the surveillance of the air space on the Alliance's eastern flank. Activities of flight, deterrence, vigilance, control, support and transport that saw us in the skies of the Alliance for approximately 4,300 hours, including the activities of transport and of In-flight refuelling.
They have been further 7,200 flight hours sorties by fighter aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, and transport aircraft, deployed as part of the Task Force in Kuwait for activities Intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, coalition personnel support on the ground and aerial refuelling. An activity of the national air contingent present in Kuwaiti and Iraqi territory as part of the operation Prima Parthica – Inherent Resolve, launched for the contrast and fight against Daesh since October 2014.
They finally 12 the Scramble carried out in favour of National air defence, which verifies and identifies aircraft without authorisation to fly in Italian airspace, or those that have lost radio contact with national air traffic control bodies. A seamless, silent activity, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
110 medical transports, 90 search and rescue operations, 26 firefighting interventions
The year that has just ended was also characterised by interventions Air rescue, carried out not only to the’abroad, as done in favour of the populations of Türkiye e Libya struck respectively by a violent earthquake and a terrible flood, or the repatriation operations, with AM aircraft, of our countrymen from Israel and from Niger, affected by severe national instability; but also constant support for Italian citizens affected by disasters or in need of urgent medical transport. The helicopters and crews of the AM air rescue service were indeed among the first to be deployed in search and in the Rescue of citizens caught up in the violent storms that hit the’Emilia-Romagna. An activity that, day and night, has helped to save more than 320 people, tens of livestock and transport more than 40,000 kg of essential supplies.
110 i Emergency medical transport for patients in imminent danger of their lives and, for humanitarian reasons, for citizens requiring urgent care and transfers to specialised medical facilities. Of all citizens transported during 2023, more than half were children under three years old, often embarked within special thermal culvert, or even inside the ambulance loaded onto the aircraft, before being transferred to national centres of excellence for paediatrics, anywhere in Italy.
They have been 90 search and rescue operations for seriously injured people, disperse or life-threatened in remote mountain areas or at sea, and 26 whereas those in favour of Forest Fire Prevention Campaign (Active Insurance Benefit) from last summer, which saw the S.A.R. Centres (Search and RescueThe Air Force will contribute to extinguishing the fires that have broken out in our territory, to protect the population and the environment, in effective synergy with the Defence, State Agencies and Corps.
More than 1.500, finally, the migrants landed on the coast of Lampedusa and transported to the mainland, in order to reduce overcrowding within the island's hotspot. In addition 3,000 kg of essential supplies Embark.
Technological challenges
2023 was also a year full of events, emotions, memories, and present and future technological challenges, such as the partnership with United Kingdom e Japan in the construction of the future 6th generation fighter in GCAP programme (Global Combat Air Programme); participation and support from the AM in the field of scientific research in Antarctica; the presentation of the’International Flight Training School in Sardinia; the Italian Air Force's suborbital human spaceflight with Virgin Galactic within the scope of the Mission “Virtute 1”; The redeployment over 10,000km from home for a joint exercise in the East with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, the Japanese Air Self-Defence Force.
What awaits us
With 2023 drawing to a close, it has been a year packed with activity, always at the forefront of the country's security and international stability. This 2023, which winks at the’year 101“, to tomorrow's challenges, making its natural and undisputed expertise in the aerospace sector available to all those who aspire to operate in the third dimension.
Among the activities in which the Air Force will be involved in 2024, there is the flight to the International Space Station of Colonel Walter Villadei, within the scope of Axiom Space's Ax-3 mission; the return to Alaska for the Red Flag; and finally the flight to the United States and Canada to represent, through National Acrobatic Patrol, Italy on the world stage. On this occasion, the Frecce Tricolori aircraft will also perform in Los Angeles for the arrival of the Ship Vespucci, currently engaged in its world tour, demonstrating a Defence sector that operates in a compact and united manner, even beyond national borders. Finally, the Air Force will once again participate, thousands of kilometres from home, in the “Pitch Black ’24”Multinational air exercise in Australia.
