An eye-catching special colored Tornado IDS for the 60th anniversary of 311° Gruppo.

On Oct. 27, the Italian Air Force officially rolled out a Tornado IDS in a special livery at Pratica di Mare airbase, near Rome, Italy.

The aircraft, serialled CSX 7041, celebrates the 60th anniversary of the 311° Gruppo (Squadron) of the RSV (Reparto Sperimentale Volo), the Italian Air Force Test Wing responsible for the development, testing and validation of all the flying “hardware”: aircraft, sensors, weapons, etc.

The new “special color” was the highlight of a ceremony that also included the flying display of the C-27J Spartan and the Eurofighter Typhoon: the unit is indeed responsible of the aerial displays of all the ItAF aircraft.

Our contributor Alessandro Borsetti attended the small airshow at Pratica di Mare and took the photographs you can find in this post (top air-to-air image is a courtesy photo by the Italian Air Force).

Image credit: Alessandro Borsetti (top: Italian Air Force)

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Salva

I created the following image (using Photoshop) stitching 5 pictures of the F-2000A Typhoon of the Italian Air Force  I took at Jesolo Air Show rehearsal on Jun. 10, 2011 (the 2nd one being the famous “Typhoon & the moon” one).

Typhoon’s rate of turn enables the F-2000 to perform all its display within 1 km radius of the center of the display area.

At Air Extreme 2011, test pilot Maj. Raffaele Beltrame of the 311° Gruppo of the RSV (Reparto Sperimentale Volo – Italian Test Wing), based at Pratica di Mare airbase, flew same display flown at Aero India 2011, at Bengaluru that you can see from inside the cockpit in the following interesting video:

The tonneau, or roll, is an acrobatic maneuver in which the aircraft performs a complete 360 degree rotation around its longitudinal axis. Although it is usually performed by fighter jets, few transport aircraft are able to perform it safely. Among them, the C-27J Spartan of the Italian Air Force as the picture below, taken during Jesolo Air Extreme 2011 airshow, shows.

Although the majority of airshow spectators thinks that a roll by a 15 tonnes plane is just a way to show its maneuverability, this kind of maneuver retains a degree of usefulness in a tactical situation. As RSV (Reparto Sperimentale Volo – Italian Test Wing) test pilot Capt. Gianmarco Di Loreto explained during the C-27J display, the roll could be the faster way to reverse a turn when the transport aircraft detects a threat or comes under enemy fire and needs to follow the less predictable flight path.

Below: the entire sequence of the roll performed during Air Extreme 2011

 

After publishing a post about the Thunderbirds condensation clouds induced by high-G maneuvers and high-AOAs (Angle Of Attack) during and a post about the rehearsals, below you can find some more pictures about the Jesolo Air Extreme 2011 airshow, taken on Jun. 12, 2011.

Yesterday I’ve published some pictures of the Thunderbirds performing a demo flight at Jesolo on Jun. 10 to explain the origin of condensation clouds generated by maneuvering aircraft.  Here’s a gallery of the most interesting pictures taken during Jun. 10 and 11 rehearsals of Jesolo Air Extreme 2011.

Even though to the eyes of a spectator a Frecce Tricolori or Thunderbirds display overhead an airfield does not change much from the one which takes place over the coast line of a beach resort, the way display teams or solos fly may differ significantly depending on the environment in which the aerobatic display is executed. The different topographic features of the place where the air show takes place, and the surrounding landscape may, in fact, require the adoption of specific solutions in order to maintain standard distances and to correctly evaluate the separation from the terrain under peculiar light conditions. Familiarisation with the landscape and evaluating the display arena are the purposes of the preparation flight which precedes every display of a display team. In the case of displays flown over land, the terrain usually offers a multitude of fixed references which assist in the perception of speed, travelled airspace and altitude, such as crop lines, fields, roads, railways, and water courses.

Over the water, as at Jesolo, it is necessary to utilise buoys or boats which, besides delineating the display area in respect to a crowd line which is frequently extremely extended, allow the accurate determination of the display line, i.e. the line on the ground that is at least 3 Km long (1,5 Km to the left and right of display crowd centre), which must be perfectly visible from the air and placed at a distance of 230 metres in front of the public. This line constitutes the reference for the pilots for the safe execution of all the manoeuvres.

Although usually free of significant obstacles, displays flown over water can hide several traps as I’ve explained here. In those flown over the sea, the sunlight reflected on the surface may reduce into sun visibility, a phenomenon which also occurs when snow glare is encountered when flying over the mountains.

During rehearsals display teams can fly a modified display to get familiar with the display area and its references. For instance, the diamond formation of the Thunderbirds did not perform the high bomb burst on Jun. 10 while solos repeated some opposing passes while, on Jun. 11, the Frecce Tricolori’s solo did not perform the famous “crazy flight”.