Alenia Aermacchi’s M-346 To Train Italian Pilots For Eurofighter Operations

Italian Air Force will start testing the capability of Finmeccanica-Alenia Aermacchi’s M-346 Master, a military transonic trainer aircraft, as an "aggressor" in dissimilar combat training missions with the Eurofighter aircraft.

Starting next August the students of the Italian Air Force who are to fly on the combat aircraft will accomplish the training’s phase IV on the new M-346, the final step before the passage to the operational airplanes.

 The tests validated the ItAF’s M-346 in the role, among the ones envisaged, of “Red" to train future Eurofighter pilots in DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training) scenarios.

 In the tests carried out, the M-346 has operated at 100% in BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missions because of its own data-link, while the Eurofighter has used its own FPR-14 Autonomous Air-Combat Manoeuvring Instrumentation (AACMI) pod to simulate air-to-air “radar-to-radar” missions.

Thanks to the perfect interoperability, to the technological capabilities intrinsic in the two aircraft, and to the M-346 performance, ItAF can now assure high-quality training by simulating various operational scenarios for its future fighter pilots and instructors.