Take a ride on board an Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss as it flies as number 2 of a flight of 3 AT-802Fs involved in a fire fighting operation in the mountains near Caserta, in Central Italy. 10 Fire Boss (piloted by 9 pilots from the Italian Air Force and 1 from the Italian Navy with the “water bomber” qualification) are being used by the Italian Civil Protection (under a leasing contract) to support the fleet of 19 Canadair CL-415s that are currently unavailable as the previous contract with SOREM was rescinded after its chief was arrested as a consequence of a big tax swindle and a new tender was issued to find another contractor (a Temporary Consortium of Enterprises by Inaer Helycopter Italia and Inaer Aviones Anfibios Sau).
Fire fighting with the Fire Boss
F-35
“No way an F-35 will ever match a Typhoon fighter jet in aerial combat” Eurofighter test pilot says
In an interesting piece by Flight’s Dave Majumdar, Bill Flynn, Lockheed test pilot responsible for flight envelope expansion activities for the F-35 claimed that all three variants of the Joint Strike Fighter will have better kinematic […]
F-35
Italy has decided: F-35s to be cut by more than 30 percent.
More technology, less personnel and only 90 F-35s: this is the outcome Italian Defense spending review. On Feb. 15, the long awaited Italian Defense spending review was finally presented to the Parliament by the Minister […]
Aviation
Operation Unified Protector (was Odyssey Dawn) explained (Day 35)
Previous debriefings: Archive Notice for my readers: please don’t expect the usual daily updates for the next few days. For sure, I’ll provide new updates after Easter but I’m still deciding if the next will […]