While flyovers in Italy are usually carried out by the Frecce Tricolori display team, four F-2000s flew over the starting grid of the Grand Prix near Florence, Italy, today, to celebrate the 1000th Formula 1 race of the Ferrari racing team.
On Sept. 13, 2020, four Eurofighter Typhoon jets, two belonging to the 4° Stormo (Wing), based at Grosseto Air Base, and two belonging to the 36° Stormo, from Gioia del Colle, performed a flyover at the first ever Formula 1 race hosted by the Ferrari-owned track, at Mugello, near Florence, in central Italy.
The four jets literally rocked the starting grid with a formation pass, right after the national anthem, followed by a couple of cool, noisy low passes in pairs.
👀 Pre Show: i caccia Eurofighter dell’@ItalianAirForce sfrecciano sopra il circuito. Un orgoglio italiano, per un legame, quello tra Arma e Ferrari, suggellato da un simbolo: il cavallino rampante 🇮🇹 #TuscanGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/GeCPgViC5J
— Mugello Circuit (@MugelloCircuit) September 13, 2020
Although the flyovers in Italy are traditionally carried out by the Frecce Tricolori, the Italian Air Force aerobatic display team, today’s mission was carried out by the F-2000As (as the Typhoons are designated in Italy) to celebrate the 1000th Formula 1 race of the Scuderia Ferrari: in fact, both the Eurofighters and the famous Italian racing team’s cars sport the worldwide known “Prancing Horse”, a symbol inherited from the Italian WWI ace Francesco Baracca.
The red cars from Maranello and the Italian Air Force jets have always been intrinsically linked by their use of the Prancing Horse emblem: for instance, the first Eurofighter wearing the markings of the 4° Stormo made its first public appearance at Grosseto on Dec. 11, 2003, during a famous event that also featured the race between a Eurofighter (the aircraft serialled MM X614 IPA2 operating with the Alenia flight team at the Turin-Caselle facility, piloted by the Italian astronaut and Alenia test pilot Maurizio Cheli) and the Ferrari F2003-GA piloted by Michael Schumacher.
Four @ItalianAirForce @eurofighter Typhoons have rocked the starting grid of the Mugello Grand Prix to celebrate @ScuderiaFerrari’s 1000th GP. The jets of 4th and 36th Stormo sport the famous Prancing Horse of WWI ace Francesco Baracca, that has also become the symbol of Ferrari. pic.twitter.com/2FVR0c1Sb5
— David Cenciotti (@cencio4) September 13, 2020
Back to today’s Grand Prix, it’s also worth of remark that, in order to take part in the flyover at Mugello at 14.55LT, two F-2000s flew from Gioia del Colle, in southeastern Italy, to Grosseto, in the central part of the country, in the morning on Sunday Sept. 13: during the ferry flight, the two aircraft were “diverted” to intercept and perform a VID (Visual IDentification) on an ultralight aircraft that had lost radio contact with the civilian Air Traffic Control (a typical “COMLOSS” mission – from Communication Loss). The two Typhoons continued their flight to Grosseto after the “zombie” (as the intercepted aircraft is dubbed in the fighter pilot “lingo”) was identified and re-established the radio contact with the ATC agencies.
Since Sept. 8, 2020, four Eurofighters from the 36°, 4° and 37° Stormo are deployed to Šiauliai, Lithunia, to support NATO Baltic Air Policing mission: the Typhoons of the Task Force Air “Baltic Thunder” performed their first A-Scramble (Alert-Scramble) to intercept a Russian Il-20M ELINT aircraft on Sept. 11.
Last week, on Sunday Sept. 6, 2020, the Monza F1 GP was opened by the Frecce Tricolori:
The Monza F1 GP 2020 flyover as seen from the cockpit of “Pony 5”. Awesome footage released by the @ItalianAirForce. pic.twitter.com/RvNZlbZPe3
— David Cenciotti (@cencio4) September 6, 2020
As happened today, also on Sunday Sept. 6, the Italian Typhoons were scrambled to intercept an aircraft following a COMLOSS event:
Scramble today for two Eurofighter Typhoons of the @ItalianAirForce from Grosseto, which were launched to intercept a CL600 OE-IGA flying as IJM607 from Moscow to Olbia following a COMLOSS event – loss of radio contact with the ATC. Screenshot from @ADSBexchange pic.twitter.com/f724d8IDUO
— David Cenciotti (@cencio4) September 6, 2020
