The first rollout of the F-35, or F-35B took place at the Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) facility. The rollout demonstrates the strong partnership between the Italian Ministry of Defence, industry partner Leonardo and Lockheed Martin. The Italian FACO is owned by the Italian Ministry of Defence and is operated by Leonardo in conjunction with Lockheed Martin.
Claudio Graziano, Italian chief of defence, Carlo Magrassi, secretary general of defence/director of National Armament, Mathias Winter, deputy programme executive officer at the F-35 Joint Programme Office, Filippo Bagnato, Leonardo Aircraft Division’s managing director, and Doug Wilhelm, Lockheed Martin F-35 Programme Management vice president, spoke at the milestone event.
“Italy is not only a valued F-35 program partner that has achieved many F-35 program ‘firsts’, but is also a critical NATO air component force, providing advanced airpower for the alliance for the coming decades,” Wilhelm said. “Italian industry has participated in the design of the F-35 and Italian industry made components fly on every production F-35 built to date.”
The jet’s first flight is estimated in late August and it is programmed to be delivered to the Italian Ministry of Defence in November. Besides, two Italian F-35A aircraft will deliver from Cameri this year, the first by July and the second in the fourth quarter. To date, seven F-35As have been delivered from the Cameri FACO; four of those jets are now based at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, for international pilot training and three are at Amendola Air Base, near Foggio on the Adriatic coast. The Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) has already flown more than 100 flight hours in its Amendola-based F-35As.
On September 7, 2015, the first Italian-produced F-35 built at the Cameri FACO made the first international flight in F-35 programme history, and in February 2016, the F-35A made the programme’s first trans-Atlantic crossing. In December 2016, the Italian Air Force’s first F-35s arrived at the first in-country base, Amendola AB.
