F-35: The first Italian JSF will fly in October

14/06/15

The first F-35 built outside the United States will take off in October next year and will be an Italian fighter. This is what they communicate from Lockheed Martin. After completing the test flights with the Italian Air Force, the plane named AL-1 will fly over the Atlantic in the first quarter of the 2016, will cross the United Kingdom and Iceland, to head to the Luke Air Force base, in Arizona.

On the American base the Italian pilots will start training for the qualification on the new platform. The final assembly line is located in Cameri, in northern Italy. The entire plant, owned by the Italian Ministry of Defense, is managed by Finmeccanica - Alenia Aermacchi and Lockheed Martin. The structure, unique of its kind outside the United States, was built last year to perform maintenance, repair, revision and updating of the JSF. Cameri will be the HUB of all F-35 deployed in the Mediterranean.

AL-1, the first Italian F-35, is currently undergoing some small changes planned before receiving the final coating. This last procedure, which will take six weeks of work, will start on the next 23 June. The coating will be carried out by Alenia Aermacchi under the supervision of Lockheed experts.

Our presence is essential - they say from Lockheed - the Italian Ministry of Defense has explicitly requested our supervision for what is, in effect, a new technology.

The 20 next August, the first Italian F-35 will start the testing phases. The software will be loaded on the aircraft within the first ten days of September. The first flight, according to Lockheed, will take place between the first or second week of October.

Lockheed Martin will perform three test flights - continue from the American company - however since Italy does not have qualified pilots, the following three test flights, which in theory would be up to the customer, will be carried out by the test pilots of the US Air Force. It will be like this for a couple of years.

The first two Italian JSF pilots will begin training in September in the United States. Once this phase is completed, one will remain in the United States to become an instructor, while the second will return to Italy. After the six test flights, AL-1 will return to Italy for possible changes at the end of November. The first official handover to the Italian Ministry of Defense will take place next December.

In total, eleven Italian planes will fly to the United States to train pilots from the Italian Air Force and Navy. Training for the STOVL variant will take place at the Beaufort Air Force base in South Carolina.

Italy has so far ordered eight F-35As: three at low rate of first production (LRIP6), three in LRIP 7 and two in LRIP 8. There will be 35 Italian F-38s by 2020.

Having ordered two aircraft in Low rate initial production (8 phase), in the second half of last year, helped to prevent the interruption of the Cameri production line. Lockheed Martin expects that the official negotiations for the LRIP 9 and 10 aircraft will begin shortly. The first six F-35As will be delivered by October 2016. Four more in the 2017. Four in the 2018, seven in the 2019 and 13 in the 2010.

Production is far lower than what the Cameri line could manage, but the decrease is due to the reduction in the number of Italian F-35 ordered. The investment of one billion euros for Cameri is justified only considering the entire life cycle of the JSF.

Strategically, Cameri makes sense. In the 2019, the line will produce its first Dutch JSFs, according to an agreement between the Netherlands and Italy. Of the thirteen aircraft built in the 2020, eight will be Dutch.

Franco Iacch