Italien: Neues C4ISTAR-Flugzeug auf Basis G550

[theoderich]

Italy’s Air Force Rebuilds For The Future

The need to survey activities in North Africa and along the Mediterranean has prompted a reassessment of the air force’s requirements and driven significant investments in its ISR capability.

The service received a pair of Gulfstream G550 business-jet-based conformal airborne early warning (CAEW) aircraft from Israel—along with an observation satellite—in exchange for Israel acquiring 30 M-346 jet trainers from Leonardo. Italy has since decided to purchase eight more G550s for a range of ISR and electronic warfare missions.

The final decision on how the G550s will be configured is pending, but two of the eight are planned to be used as CAEW platforms, for a fleet of four. An undisclosed number are set to be in the Joint Airborne Multisensor Multimission System (JAMMS) configuration for command-and-control and intelligence-gathering missions, and the remainder are to be in a Multisensor Multimission System configuration for standoff jamming.

“This is a very diverse program, so by choosing a single platform, the logistic requirements are lower, the training burden is lower and then you just missionize the platform,” Brig. Gen. Igor Bruni, head of the Italian Air Staff’s Logistics Department, said at the AeroSpace Power Conference.

“ISR and electronic warfare are gaps we are trying to fill,” Ippoliti said. “We also feel we need to increase our airborne early warning, because we believe this capability needs to be increased by all nations.” He noted that Italy’s CAEW will be able to contribute to NATO’s Alliance Future Surveillance and Control capability, due to enter service in 2035.

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/ ... lds-future