The first pillar of the Italian approach to airpower has been a clear commitment to the F-35 as a driver of change in shaping a fifth generation enabled force.
The second pillar has been to build a facility to produce their own F-35s along with European allies and to place that facility within a secure area where the entire fast jet maintenance for the Italian Air Force is performed.
And that F-35 Final Assembly and Check Out facility (FACO) is itself more than a factory: it is a significant maintenance facility for Italian and allied F-35s.
In other words, the Italian approach is not just about their own combat power. It is about leveraging a F-35 global enterprise.
It has been allied-oriented from the outset, and the fact that virtually all European air forces are flying F-35s means that the bet which Italy took a decade ago to build the FACO at Cameri was a prudent one.
I visited Cameri in 2013. Those were early days. I talked with workers and management and the energy was palatable. But I think it was safe to say that much of Italian industry and political and strategic talking heads were not on the same page with the workers at the plant.
I noted in an article about the facility that it is was designed with a future in mind anticipating a strong demand signal beyond Italy itself for maintenance, and the plant was structured with that in mind.
This is what I wrote in 2013:
“The facilities are very flexible for maintenance. There are no fixed bays but are open areas where the client can figure the support area as they might wish to support their combat aircraft.”
It is now 11 years later, and we can see the realization of what was more of a dream than reality in 2013. 70 F-35s has already been built at the plant with the current production projected yearly around 15. And there are significant maintenance facilities at the plant for Italian and allied F-35s.
By comparison, Dassault produced 13 Rafales in 2023.
When I visited Rome, I had a chance to talk with Brig. Gen. Cristiano Bandini, the commander of the 2nd Division of the Air Force Logistics in the Italian Air Force.
As he explained his remit: “My responsibility for Air Force sustainment, not only for the 35 but for all the fleets for that are in service with the Italian Air Force. Cameri part of my command.”
He explained that Cameri is part of a larger secure airfield area which includes Eurofighter and Tornado sustainment. The Cameri sustainment is contractor managed and the Eurofighter and Tornado sustainment are Air Force managed. But he argued that having the entire fast jet sustainment capability at Cameri meant that the Air Force could take a more integrated sustainability approach.
We discussed briefly my own experiences earlier at Cameri and he assured me that things had changed with regard to public support. The local area and more generally in Italy, it is realized that this is a national asset which creates jobs and allows the Italian Air Force to work closely with allies.
Other Europeans have or will have their F-35s built at Cameri. Bandini noted that template was for first F-35s for a European customer to be built at Fort Worth and the pilots trained at Luke Air Force base in Arizona. Then the rest of the build for a European partner could be done at Cameri.
They build wings as well as complete aircraft at Cameri, and these Italian-built wings are part of the F-35 global enterprise. The first wing built in Italy and delivered to the overall F-35 program was in 2015.
Brig. Gen. Bandini then turned to the maintenance side of Cameri. He explained that currently there are five maintenance bays at the factory which service aircraft from Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and in the future there will be USAF aircraft maintained there as well.
Cameri is the designated heavy maintenance and repair facility for the European and Mediterranean region. This is a key part and indicator of a global enterprise for the F-35.
He indicated that they are currently expanding the facilities from five to seventeen maintenance bays with the provision for four additional bays.
And support facilities are being increased to encompass a doubling of the facility itself.
Brig. Gen. Bandini underscored the need to take advantage of the commonalities of the F-35 across allied fleets to shape cross-servicing agreements and this is clearly an important next step to realize the promise inherent in the program of becoming a true global enterprise.
Featured image: F-35 produced at Cameri facility.
16 September 2023
Credit: Alamy