A mysterious "zap"

March 30, 2010 Italian Air Force, Military Aviation
David Cenciotti

During my recent visit to Pratica di Mare, I noticed that many of the aircraft that attended the static display of the 87th Anniversary of the Aeronautica Militare, were “zapped” with a small gecko (or something like that) with the number “14°”. Since the aircraft were parked in the 14° Stormo apron my guess is that most of the visitors were zapped by the personnel of the locally-based Wing, but I’m still looking for someone that is able to confirm this hypothesis and to explain to which unit that symbol belongs to.

Aircraft zapped were:
MM7014/RS-01 Tornado IDS
MM55070/61-136 MB.339CD
MMxxxx AB.212
MM81267/72-04 NH-500E
MM55125/70-34 SF-260EA
MM55106/70-11 SF-260EA
MM61937 S.208M
MM55044/32-57 AMX-T



About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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