There is something romantic in the primordial dream that man has of flying, the possibility of seeing the world from a different perspective has led us to create extraordinary machines capable of making the sky a point of arrival rather than a limit.
The infrastructure complex of the 5 ° Squadroni Aves Toro di Venaria group is located just over 34 km from the city of Turin and has made the home of the Piedmontese sky its home.
Theirs is a structure perfectly integrated with the small town that surrounds it and which does not seem to have affected the routine in any way, on one side land war helicopters on the other there are tourists from all over the world who come to visit the Royal Palace of Reale.
Upon my arrival at the Santi military airport that houses the Aves "TORO", ten.col Pellegrini, commander of the structure and responsible for the activities of the regiment, welcomes me, alongside him Colonel Meola, spokesman for the Army Aviation of Viterbo .
I receive an exemplary welcome and total willingness on the part of everyone, in the background to the repetitive noise of an AB 205 helicopter landing. "Come and see, there is no better way to start our visit to a helicopter regiment!" - I agree and begin my visit. 
Very few - even among the most knowledgeable Turinese - know that Venaria airport is the oldest military airport in Italy, it has a long history that starts from 1909 when, using the state lands of the Reggia di Venaria, Aristide Faccioli realized a dream: he designed and built the first entirely Italian biplane which, piloted by his son Mario, took to the air giving way to the now centuries-old history of this military port and that of light aviation in our country.
Thanks to the foresight of the colonel of artillery Santi - to which the airport is entitled precisely - the military structure of Turin turns from a barracks of artillerymen to a barracks of pilots.
The airport allowed to continue the experiments on the Faccioli biplanes for a military use at the time still to be defined.
Faccioli's own far-sightedness also rewarded Colonel Santi, who allowed the development of helicopter technology, paving the way for the great use they now have on several fronts, from rescue to population to the engagement of firefighting to support ground troops in operational theaters .
During the great war the airfield became an outpost for training pilots to be sent to the front to fight the first "flying battles" in history.
During the second world war, on the other hand, luck did not assist the city of Venaria, victim of the bombing that the 25 Aprile 1945 razed to the ground the airfield and the hangars (subsequently looted by the civilian population in search of food).
In the 1951 the light army aviation becomes an effective reality in our country, it differs from the traditional aeronautics - born only about twenty years earlier - for the leaner and less mammoth machines that remained the prerogative of the youngest of the Armed Forces.
When in the 1954 the pole of Venaria passes from aeronautics to aviation, one of the first departments of the future Aviation of the Army - AVES - with the tasks of aerial observation and a close collaboration with the nearby Alpine Taurinense brigade sees the light.
To date the military airport Santi is included in the "Cuneense" contingent of the NATO mobile force, has taken part in numerous international exercises and in the UN has been employed in Mozambique between the 1993-94 and in Somalia among the 1992-94, takes part in the NATO mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and base personnel contribute to operations in Namibia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon.
Actively employed also on national territory, it deals with rescues and civil protection interventions such as mountain rescue and support to the population in the event of serious natural disasters. It also provides aid to needy populations abroad and logistic support to helicopters of other military and civil bodies , significant and varied continue to be the tasks that the men and women of this Group perform.
The centuries-old history of the airport and the nearby Reggia di Venaria clash with the technology and innovation that flies over the city skies every day, the Aves is the youngest specialty of the Italian Army but has immediately embraced the concepts of digitalization and modernization of the devices, becoming the spearhead of our armed forces.
Perfectly integrated with the digitalization system of the maneuvering space, the Army Aviation has a perfect synergy with the ground troops: "we are not a world apart" - the commander tells me - "as many can believe, if we call army aviation there must be a reason! We are the rotary wing component that supports and multiplies the ground forces. We support the fire by directly engaging the enemy and thus giving breath to the troops on the ground to reorganize the operation or multiply the strength of the soldiers already deployed bringing other troops in support. Those who say that we are a world apart is perhaps because they are not quite clear how our specialty works "
Despite the numerous cuts to the Defense sector in recent years, Aves has safeguarded its high degree of competence and professionalism with undisputed results both in Italy and abroad, where our drivers and our machines are appreciated by other countries BORN.
"There are hundreds of flights we carry out every year to save people in the most inaccessible areas of Italy, in our case above all at high altitudes. The capabilities of this base of operations are vast and cover a range of several kilometers up to and beyond Lombardy The most important part of our work is in most cases something immaterial: time, time is running out and in emergency situations you have to be quick, to project rotary-wing assets able to operate in the field we put more of an hour during the day and almost two hours during the night, our group operates H24 every day including holidays, without great harmony and a perfect working synergy we will not be able to do anything. , not even a doctor and even a radar technician, all together, however, they create something extraordinary with a capacity for extremely high operation, they are a system, the work of an influencer ello of the others. "
Colonel Pellegrini, thanks to the interoperability between the medical department and the pilots, allows me to speak with one of the doctors who work with them during the recovery of the injured.Instead of the usual white coat I find myself a doctor in all of an aviation women I saw at the base - which takes me on a helicopter set up for rescue trials complete with a dummy and defibrillator. "What the commander says is very true, without a combined job saving lives or bringing aid would be unthinkable. When we help someone, the doctor, the pilot, the nurse and the specialist always talk to each other, they are in contact. If we want to change the hospital of arrival. due to the changed conditions of the patient we communicate it to the pilot who works to ensure the maximum cooperation of the health authorities on the ground! We know we can express ourselves to the best of our professional skills because we all work for the good of the patient or the populations in need. "
I am surprised to discover such a great complicity between the health sector and Aves, but the question naturally arises: "Don't you have the same task that the 118 performs on the national territory?"
The answer leaves me puzzled for a moment: "We see at night!", And adds "We have the night visibility allowed by the NVG viewer which allows an almost perfect overview in complete darkness - only a slight distortion and a decidedly unnatural green color make us understand that you are actually viewing with a night vision device. 118 and the other armed forces do not have the skills and authorization to travel at night outside of pre-established routes. Abroad, however, there are no helicopters that can retrieve our injured and at the same time avoiding the concept of safety, there is only us "
In light of what has been said so far, it turns out that the Aves component has far more tasks than you might think, especially in the national territory. However, what still remains impressed in the minds of many men and women are the extraordinary images that they come from Afghanistan or Lebanon, a view of the world that no one has ever seen before and on which the eyes of our pilots and specialists alight first.
In the future we could still see those sensational and unexplored landscapes immortalized by a hatchback of an Italian military helicopter?
Commander Pellegrini and Colonel Meola have no doubts. "The Aves component - as well as the entire Army - is changing its face. The helicopter is a concept now superseded by drones, man will no longer be a field operator but an asset manager. Abroad, in high-potential contexts asymmetrical you have to work with detail above all for the acquisition of objectives, helicopters are big noisy and very expensive, drones are less so and above all they do not carry any human life. Our component will always see greater use for the future, even if with different roles from the current ones. We continue to maintain the high standard of flight and concentration that are required of us at present and we prepare for the future ".
Colonel Meola is keen to specify that: "The operational theaters where Aves is used are very many, the deployment of these important assets and the pecuniary of men means that pilots and specialists make exhausting shifts in service and have unthinkable shifts with six months abroad and a few months after coming back out again. Imagine what impact this can have on families and on the personal life of one of our men: it is exhausting! "
What the colonel said is of fundamental importance and he finds the complete support of ten.col Pellegrino.
The number of men that make up the Aviation specialty of the Army is "narrow" for the tasks that they have abroad and in Italy, the training is always more expensive and they are one of the only specialties not to be able to count on a selected reserve to be used in case of need. All this greatly affects the physique of the pilot and specialist who suffer major injuries such as crushing of the spine or muscle problems due to the stresses that the machine places on the seat over the long term.
In the second analysis, a rotation in the theater so wide and an increasing demand for periods of preparation at the base does not allow the families that follow the military from the Blue Basque to have a continuous stability or to plan their family life.
At present there is no possibility of improvement for this absolutely unacceptable condition for any worker with or without currency. Coming to the end of my visit and taking into account the great availability of the commander and the colonel, I ask if I can quell a little curiosity about their specialty, both willingly accept: "Why was the Aves framed under the Cavalry specialty?"
The question draws a smile and to answer me is Colonel Meola "Look, our knightly break lasted only three years and served almost only to confuse us. We also wanted to introduce the American word" Cavalry of the Air "so we decided that the specialty which more than approached the American was obviously the Cavalry Weapon for its exploring abilities similar to the typical acquisition capabilities of the Aves.We have changed flags of war and taken those of the knights who are smaller, there was even in the program a new frieze and a new Basque never entered into force. In the end it was understood that we had no meaning to tie the soul of the Aves so deeply to that of the Cavalry also for a practical question of enlistment as well as of traditions and history. " At the Aves like to always have a look at the future on a world that changes rapidly in an unpredictable and complex way, one of the few certainties we have is that in the future of our armed force the helicopter component will need ever greater operational capabilities linked to factors of asymmetry of modern conflicts.
"From the skies of Piedmont to the skies of the world" is the phrase with which the 34 ° Squadroni Aves Toro Group of Venaria leaves its visitors returning to do what it does best: fly.
Denise Serangelo
