Il 5 Maggio 2011, esattamente 6 anni fa, l’USAF accettò il suo primo Lockheed Martin F-35A di produzione in serie all’interno della LRIP 1 (Low Rate Initial Production).
Oggi, 5 Maggio 2017, alla presenza delle autorità e di pochissimi ospiti, il primo
F-35B STOVL per l’Italia (
BL-1) ha effettuato il roll-out presso la F.A.C.O. di Cameri.
Roll-out of the first Italian STOVL Lockheed Martin F -35B Lightning II (BL-1) at FACO Cameri. (Copyright Stato Maggiore Difesa) by
Gianluca Conversi, su Flickr
Nella foto pubblicata sui profili ufficiali dello Stato Maggiore della Difesa si vede l’aereo ancora privo della verniciatura finale.
L’abitacolo, più corto, lo identifica come la versione “Jump Jet” non essendo stati aperti per l’evento i portelli dell’innovativo Lift System di Rolls Royce che determina il volo ed il sostentamento verticale.
Tra le altre caratteristiche che si differenziano dalla versione A convenzionale, ricordiamo l’assenza del cannone interno (che sarà montato in pod ventrale per le specifiche missioni che lo richiederanno) e la sonda per il rifornimento in volo che non sarà ad asta rigida (flying boom) tipica della versione CTOL bensì a sonda flessibile ed imbuto (probe and drogue) situata sul lato destro della fusoliera della versione a decollo corto ed atterraggio verticale.
Nelle immagini a corredo, relative alla versione B di Marines e RAF presentate al RIAT 2016, sono ben visibili le caratteristiche uniche di questa macchina che entrerà in linea per Marina Militare ed Aeronautica in 30 esemplari.
Il totale degli aerei commissionati dall’Italia sono al momento 90 di cui 7 già consegnati (4 si trovano in USA presso la Luke AFB per l’addestramento dei piloti e 3 ad Amendola dichiarati operativi lo scorso Dicembre.
BL-1, come dichiarato nel comunicato ufficiale del Difesa, verrà consegnato a Novembre.
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La sezione
F-35 del Forum PSC con è accessibile qui:
https://piti.forumfree.it/?f=64664631 mentre qualche altro scatto del "jump Jet" lo trovate qui:
https://piti.forumfree.it/?t=72999297 .
Questo è il comunicato diramato sa Lockheed Martin:
"The first Short Take-Off/Vertical Landing version of the F-35, or F-35B, assembled outside the United States rolled out of the Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) facility here today.
The rollout exhibits the ongoing strong partnership between the Italian Ministry of Defense, industry partner Leonardo and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT). The Italian FACO is owned by the Italian Ministry of Defense and is operated by Leonardo in conjunction with Lockheed Martin with a current workforce of more than 800 skilled personnel engaged in full assembly of the Conventional Take-off/Landing F-35A and F-35B aircraft variants and F-35A wing production.
Gen. Claudio Graziano, Italian chief of defense, Gen. Carlo Magrassi, secretary general of defense/director of National Armament, Adm. Mathias Winter, deputy program executive officer at the F-35 Joint Program Office, Filippo Bagnato, Leonardo Aircraft Division’s Managing Director, and Doug Wilhelm, Lockheed Martin F-35 Program Management vice president, spoke at the milestone event.
“Italy is not only a valued F-35 program partner that has achieved many F-35 program ‘firsts’, but is also a critical NATO air component force, providing advanced airpower for the alliance for the coming decades,” Wilhelm said. “Italian industry has participated in the design of the F-35 and Italian industrymade components fly on every production F-35 built to date.”
BL-1’s first flight is anticipated in late August and it is programmed to be delivered to the Italian Ministry of Defense in November. In addition, two Italian F-35A aircraft will deliver from Cameri this year, the first by July and the second in the fourth quarter. To date, seven F-35As have been delivered from the Cameri FACO; four of those jets are now based at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, for international pilot training and three are at Amendola Air Base, near Foggio on the Adriatic coast. The Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) has already flown more than 100 flight hours in itsAmendola-based F-35As.
After a series of confidence flights from Cameri, an Italian pilot will fly their first F-35B jet to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, early in 2018 to conduct required Electromagnetic Environmental Effects certification. The next Italian F-35B aircraft is scheduled for delivery in November 2018. The Cameri FACO has the only F-35B production capability outside the United States and is programmed to produce a total of 30 Italian F-35Bs and 60 Italian F-35As, along with 29 F-35As for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, and retains the capacity to deliver to other European partners in the future.
The Italian FACO is also producing 835 F-35A full wing sets to support all customers in the program. The FACO was selected by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2014 as the F-35 Lightning II Heavy Airframe Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade facility for the European region. The 101-acre facility includes 22 buildings and more than one million square feet of covered work space, housing 11 assembly stations, and five maintenance, repair, overhaul, and upgrade bays.
On September 7, 2015, the first Italian-produced F-35 built at the Cameri FACO made the first international flight in F-35 program history, and in February 2016, the F-35A made the program's first trans-Atlantic crossing. In December 2016, the Italian Air Force's first F-35s arrived at the first in-country base, Amendola AB."
Edited by GIORGIO CASTELLI - 7/5/2017, 21:22
