The first F-35B assembled outside the United States landed yesterday in the Naval Air Station of Patuxent River, Maryland (USA), after completing the Atlantic crossing from the Cameri Military Airport.
The fifth generation aircraft, delivered to the Navy last 25 January at the FACO (Final Assembly and Check Out) plant in Cameri and intended to operate aboard Cavour ship in place of the AV-8B Plus, will now be submitted to the electromagnetic compatibility certification at the Battlespace Simulation test center. At the end of the test activity the aircraft will be destined at the USMC base in Beaufort (SC) for the training of the pilots of the Aircraft Imbarcati Group and of the Operative Departments of the Italian Air Force.
The transfer flight of the F-35 STOVL version (Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing) was the result of a close cooperation and inter-force coordination between the Air Force and the Navy. The trans-Atlantic was in fact carried out by two experimental pilots, one of the Aeronautics and one of the Navy, both in force at the Experimental Flight Department of the Italian Air Force, the Center of Excellence of Defense titled for testing and placing in service activities. of new airplanes. The long F-35B navigation was made possible thanks to the support of the Air Force assets, including a C-130J aircraft of the 46 ^ Pisa Air Brigade configured with oceanic SAR (Search And Rescue) capability, a KC -767A of the 14 ° Stormo of Sea Practice (RM) for the refueling in flight and a TF-2000A aircraft of the 4 ° Stormo of Grosseto with chase functions.
The F-35 final assembly plants outside the United States are two, that of Cameri, in the province of Novara, and that of Nagoya, in Japan. However, Cameri is the only one able to perform the assembly of the B version of the F-35. The 7 September 2015 the first F-35A produced in Italy at the FACO of Cameri made the first international flight in the history of the program, while in February 2016 the Air Force was the first Armed Force in the world to realize the transatlantic flight of an F-35A. In December 2016, the first F-35A of the Italian Air Force entered service at the 32 ° Wing of Amendola (FG), the first air base in Europe to host these fifth-generation aircraft, and since then have already matured 1.700 hours of flight.