The Air Academy hosted the first basic course for the preparation for Air Operations Command and Control. The course focuses on training the future leaders of the Air Force and aims to provide a first overview of the skills required for personnel to be employed in operational roles.
The training activity involved 62 participants: aspiring Officer pilots and Weapons Officers, belonging to the “Mars V” course, and a French trainee.
The course, taught by staff from the Air Operation Training Centre (AOTC), in addition to a series of introductory lectures, was characterized by an interesting final exercise, during which a dedicated training audience (TA) classroom and another for the conduct of the exercise (EXCON) were used.
The course cycle was divided into modules covering both planning and execution issues, with the help of computer terminals for simulations, for a total of two weeks.
For the first time, the Aspirants were immersed in an operational scenario close to an international crisis, with the working conditions and tasks typical of an AOC (Air & Space Operation Center).
All this is intended to highlight the complexity of the new scenarios and the necessary inter-agency and multinational coordination that results from them.
The activity concluded with the delivery by the Deputy Commander of the COA, Brigadier General Paolo Mazzi, of the certificate of attendance of the course, which, as emphasized by Brigadier General Umberto Baldi, Commandant of the Air Academy, “[…] it was a first attempt that could be repeated in the future given the clear educational value”.
