10/25/2013: Located on an Italian Air Force base used for logistics, the Italian government under the management of Alenia Aermacchi (AAeM) has built a 22 building facility to support the F-35 program.
The support comes in three parts.
- First, there is a Final Check Out and Assembly facility, for assembling Italy’s As and Bs, as well as other European F-35 partners, initially the Netherlands.
- Second, there is a wing construction facility with Italy building a minimum of 835 full wings for the F-35 global program.
- Third, with the 22 buildings of more than a million square feet of covered work space comes significant space to build out support for F-35s operated by the US and allies in Europe.
- With the Mediterranean and the Middle East as a busy operational area, the Cameri facility can provide significant operational support to the F-35 fleet operating in the area.
These photos show workers at the FACO working on the first jet.
The workforce is a mix of older and younger workers, and provides a significant boost to the future of Italian aerospace and defense.
[slidepress gallery=’cameri-and-the-f-35′]
Credit Photos: Alenia Aermacchi (AAeM)
According to Finmeccanica CEO Alessandro Pansa, in a recent comment during an audit at the Chamber of Deputies Defense Commission:
With the participation in the F-35 program “the Italian industrial system brings home potential returns for $ 10 billion” and occupational returns will exceed 5,000 units.”
The development of these potentialities “depends on our capability to use the infrastructure which have been created to build components and to provide maintenance related to avionics and electronics both for the European aircraft and the US aircraft based in Europe.
There’s no other European plant with the same requisites as our plant in Cameri”
Pansa underscored that 90 Italian companies are involved in the program and so far contracts have been subscribed for $765 million.