Air to Surface Integration Program: Joint Army-Aeronautics exercise

(To air Force)
07/03/19

As part of the "Air to Surface Integration" program (A.to.SI) included in the Squadra 4.0 Plan of the Air Squad Command to encourage the continuous integration of skills and competences in the "joint" environment and in order to contribute to the creation of effects significant by the instruments of the Aerospace Power in the Joint Battlespace., the 51 ° Stormo has given life to a project that provides for the collaboration between the pilots of the AMX line and those belonging to the 5th AVES "Rigel" regiment of Casarsa della Delizia (PD ). In this context, after a period of intense planning, an exercise was held on Tuesday 5 March with the aim of renewing knowledge of each other's skills and exploring potential employment synergies in the field of Personnel Recovery (PR) e Close Air Support (CAS). A training activity was organized at the Istrana airport involving four AMXs of the 51 Stormo, three AH-129 helicopters and two UH-90 of the 5 regiment of the AVES "Rigel", qualified personnel Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) of the 5 ° alpine regiment of Vipiteno (BZ) and a team of aircraft infantrymen of the 66 ° regiment "Trieste" of Forlì (FC), specialized in the recovery procedures of personnel left isolated.

As evidence of the importance of the project and of the strong will to develop new interforce forces, the participant took part, each of them flying over the assets of their own Armed Force, the commander of the aerial team, general of sa Fernando Giancotti and the commander of the Operative Forces Terrestrial and Operational Command Army, general of army corps Federico Bonato.

The exercise was based on the recovery of military personnel in a crisis area, with a hostile and non-permissive environment. The training activity took place in a scenario that adheres to the real conditions in which the assets could be found to operate. More specifically, personnel recovery areas have been designated, called Pick-up zones, in which the helicopters landed to carry out the rescue operations of the personnel, thus allowing the crews on board and the aircraft infantry to train in the recovery activity. 

AMX played the role of Rescue Mission Commander (RMC) with the task of protecting both the military personnel to be rescued and the recovery structures from the threats present in the area of ​​operation. Particular importance for this type of mission has been the use of the POD RecceLite thanks to which even in this context the AMX have been able to guarantee the ability to Information Superiority monitoring in real time the various changes and potential threats on the ground.

The operational activity carried out allowed to implement the synergy between the different structures and proved to be fundamental for testing tactical and operational technical procedures, contributing in a constructive way to developing new fruitful collaborations and inter-force synergies.