CELEBRATED IN GUIDONIA THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AEROCOOPERATION SCHOOL

The ceremony was presided over by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Air Force General Luca Goretti. It took place on December 7, at the Guidonia military airport, the ceremony for the 70th anniversary of theSchool of Aerial Cooperation, inter-service training center of theDefenceAccredited byNATOwhich provides an educational excellence in the field of management, interpretation and operational analysis of remote-sensing images, as well as in the field of air-to-ground cooperation operations. The event, which was attended by civil authorities andmilitary, It was opened by an intervention of the Commander of the School of Aerocooperation (SAC), Brigadier GeneralGlauco Luigi Mora, who emphasized that “this day does not mark an end point, but a renewed commitment on the path towards the challenges that the future holds for us. The opening of new domains such as space requires due attention also in the field of training: the School of Aerospace Cooperation has taken on these new challenges and, from next year, will organize, in cooperation with the Space Operations Command of the Defense, the first introductory courses on operations in the fourth dimension.”.
“We are facing a training center of excellence for the entire Defense, capable of offering a concrete educational offer that is constantly evolving and keeps pace with technological innovations, constantly adhering to national needs and open to the needs of allied and friendly countries,” emphasized the Chief of Staff of the General Staff of the Italian Armed Forces.Italian Air Force, Air MarshalLuca Goretti, who presided over the ceremony on behalf of theChief of the Defence Staff, AdmiralGiuseppe Cavo Dragone. “All operations, especially from the second post-war period onwards, up to the most recent operational theaters, have confirmed that success is strongly conditioned by the effective conduct of integrated actions among the various components of the armed forces. The SAC can capitalize on these 70 years of history – concluded General Goretti – establishing itself as a reference for the training of highly specialized figures, both for the armed forces and for other Departments, destined to operate in fields where it is of fundamental importance to know how to take advantage of the opportunities offered by increasingly advanced technologies.” The ceremony concluded with a “live” demonstration of a Close Air Support (CAS) operation to forces deployed on the ground, using ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) assets and ground attack capabilities, which, guided by ground-based Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) operators, neutralized the threat and enabled a subsequent Personnel Recovery operation, conducted by special forces operators using rotary wing assets to recover personnel isolated in hostile and non-permissive environments. The School has, in recent years, consolidated and expanded its training offering with courses in advanced specialisation related to the management, interpretation and analysis of operational imagery derived from electro-optical and radar sensors, both airborne and satellite. It is also worth mentioning the courses for “Joint Terminal Attack Controller”, “Joint Personnel Recovery”, “Joint Targeting” and “Joint Fires”, most of which are included in the catalog of courses offered by NATO. In an interministerial and dual approach, these capabilities are also made available to other institutions, as happened, for example, in favor of the Department of Civil Protection in the event of earthquakes and natural disasters. The School also collaborates with university institutions in the field of archaeological research (an activity for which the President of the Republic awarded it the “gold medal for the merits of the school, culture and art”) and develops synergies with the Defense industry, making available the knowledge and experiences gained in the field for the experimentation of specific simulation software for the training in close air support to forces on the ground.
The school’s experience and training is made available to organizations such as the European Satellite Centre (SATCEN), ESA (European Space Agency), ASI (Italian Space Agency) and the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Activities.