Just finished the visit to the trivalent F-35 – FACO / MRO&U regional pole of Cameri (NO) by a delegation of the National Armaments Directorate Switzerland, led by the Secretary General of Defense and Civil Protection, mr. Tony Eder.
The Swiss delegation was welcomed by army corps general Luciano Portolano, general secretary of defense and national director of armaments, who, in the first phase of the meeting, illustrated to the other party the organizational features of the 5th generation international program F -35 and the organization of the trivalent pole of Cameri, one of the two realities in the world outside the United States (the other is in Japan) and the only one in Europe.
The visit is part of the traditional relationship between the two neighboring countries and reflects the Swiss decision to increase the defense budget from 0,8 to 1% of GDP and to focus decisively on the modernization of the national armed forces. With this in mind, the transalpine country, in September 2022, signed an agreement for the purchase of 36 F-35s with conventional take-off and landing, for a total value of 6,25 billion dollars. The aircraft will replace the Swiss national fleets of F/A-18s Hornet and F-5 Tiger between the 2027 and the 2030.
After an initial briefing on the organization of the Piedmont plants - assembly center and final verification of the F-35 program - the production and maintenance lines of the F-35 program were visited, which today includes, for various reasons, 16 Nations, without to count the countries that are asking to be able to equip themselves with the aircraft, and therefore already and de facto has an active role in European and transatlantic cooperation.
At the end of the visit, Mr. Eder said he was fully satisfied with what he saw and complimented the level of excellence achieved and the professionalism used in the management of the Cameri trivalent pole for the Euro-Mediterranean area. He also hoped that cooperation with Italy could expand to other cooperation programs in the defense field, such as, for example, the creation of new command and control structures, to be included in the revision of the land instrument, and the participation of Swiss pilots in the training activities of the International Flight School at the Decimomannu base.
