Expansion Beckons for Italy’s Fighter Pilot School

Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists are drawn to the Italian island of Sardinia to enjoy the weather, the laid-back atmosphere and sun-kissed beaches. Now the Mediterranean island is also attracting a glowing reputation among international air forces for the training of combat pilots.

In the past three years, around 140 pilots from nearly a dozen global air forces have graduated from the International Flight Training School (IFTS), a joint military and industry collaboration among the Italian Air Force, Leonardo and CAE.

• Sardinian facility has capacity for 80 students annually
• Downloading of training to the M-346 is shortening the route to the front line
• Hungary is the latest signatory to IFTS training

Located at Decimomannu air base, the school takes students through a nine-month Phase IV Advanced/Lead-in Fighter Training course, readying fighter pilots for their frontline fourth- and fifth-generation combat aircraft using a combination of live and synthetic training.

The Italian Air Force leads the program, manages the project, decides the syllabus and ensures training quality and flight school standards, while the industrial partners—through a joint venture, Leonardo-CAE Advanced Jet Training—built the facilities and maintain the aircraft, simulator and training systems. The training is provided by instructors from both military and industry.

The biggest customer is the Italian Air Force, followed closely by Qatar. Alongside them, pilots from Austria, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the UK have graduated from the school over the past year.

The Netherlands, Singapore and Sweden also use the IFTS, and they soon will be joined by students from Hungary, which became a signatory to the IFTS on Sept. 19.

The school, which has an annual capacity of 80 students, is attracting so much interest that foundations are being laid for additional student housing, and plans are in place to expand the current fleet of Leonardo M-346 twin-engine advanced jet trainers to cope with the expected influx.

The IFTS uses 22 aircraft—the air force owns 18, and Leonardo owns four. Another six aircraft owned by Qatar are also based with the IFTS and solely train Qatari aircrew.

The need for expansion comes from increases in global defense spending and countries reequipping or expanding their fighter fleets. Retiring trainer fleets have left Western training capacity taut, particularly after the closure of NATO Flying Training in Canada. Availability of the Northrop T-38 fleet of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program is being affected by the age of the aircraft, while in the UK, engine problems have troubled BAE Systems Hawk T2 operations, prompting the Royal Air Force to look for training capacity elsewhere. The IFTS aims to cash in on this growing demand for new pilots.

Customer nations also are attracted by the technology. In addition to M-346 live flying, students can use an extensive ground-based training system, including full-mission simulators, flight-training devices as well as computer- and simulation-based training—some of which students can use to hone their skills in their own time.

The IFTS also is making use of live, virtual and constructive training, which blends the synthetic world with live flying.

Pilots in real M-346s can fly alongside their wingman, who is flying in the simulator, while technicians on the ground can generate and fly threats by mouse and keyboard. “If we are training a [beyond-visual-range] aerial engagement, we can fly two jets and two simulators versus four red air threats,” Italian Air Force Lt. Col. Marcello D’Ippolito told Aviation Week during a visit in September. He is the commander of the Italian Air Force 212th Flying Sqdn., the military unit that operates the IFTS. The threats show up on the M-346’s simulated radar, data link and in the aircraft’s targeting pod.

“With only two aircraft in flight, we can train four students, and you are saving the need to fly another six aircraft,” he said, adding that this results in more realistic training at a lower cost.

Perhaps the most crucial is the ability to download training from the front-line type onto the M-346, allowing the student pilots to learn skills on a less expensive aircraft.

The Italian Air Force’s training syllabus is built around this principle, with students learning to undertake air-to-air engagements and simulate the employment of GPS and laser-guided air-to-ground munitions. There are even courses on performing the Quick Reaction Alert mission, including procedures on how to intercept aircraft correctly. Nations that send their personnel must follow this core syllabus set by the air force, but there are additional modular courses, including night vision goggles, aerial refueling and air-to-ground missions on a range in Sardinia in conjunction with Joint Forward Air Controllers, almost all of which are taken up by customers.

“We can download a lot because the aircraft is the only trainer that allows us to do a lot of these tasks,” D’Ippolito explained.

“This way, we are learning these skills on a cheaper aircraft,” he said. “Learning these complex skills will cost much more on the Eurofighter, F/A-18, F-16 or F-35. . . . This is why so many nations are looking at our system.”

The approach allows the student pilots to be better equipped when they reach their operational conversion unit (OCU)—parlance for the training unit flying the front-line type—and their journey to becoming combat-ready is shorter as a result.

“This course goes into a little bit less depth, much more breadth,” one of the UK Royal Air Force students sent for training at the IFTS told Aviation Week. He asked that his name be withheld for security reasons.

By comparison, the Hawk T2 courses in the UK put a greater focus on air combat maneuvering, but the addition of courses in air-to-air refueling and operations on live ranges “help to derisk the transition to the OCU,” the trainee said.

Personnel who trained in Italy have found the conversion from the M-346 to Eurofighter Typhoon easier because they have already flown a twin-engine aircraft with fly-by-wire controls.

The IFTS’ origins trace back to 2017, when Leonardo and the Italian Air Force began discussions on how to strengthen Italian Air Force training and open it up to international customers. The parties signed a letter of intent at the Farnborough International Airshow in 2018, and IFTS courses began at the Italian Air Force’s mainland training base at Lecce three years later, a temporary measure until the 130,000-m² (1.4-million-ft.²) campus at Decimomannu was completed in early 2022 and training started in Sardinia later that year.

The new facilities have been developed so that the students can focus on their training, with all their needs taken care of, D’Ippolito explained. There are apartments for the trainees, a gymnasium, swimming pool and a cafeteria, while the ground-based training system building contains all the flight training devices, classrooms and briefing rooms used by students and instructors. New hangars and sun shelters have been constructed for maintenance and flight line operations.

The IFTS has brought a new lease on life to Decimomannu after a post-Cold War lull in activity. The airfield had been a hub for NATO training, as several countries have a nearly permanent presence for air combat training. Today, IFTS activities dominate proceedings, with the school’s M-346s flying 30-40 sorties a day, thanks to the year-round good flying weather and thousands of square kilometers of airspace available to the west and east of the island. This airspace is separated by an air corridor for commercial traffic into the nearby island capital of Cagliari, although operations often have to be sequenced in the summer to cope with the rush of holiday flights arriving on the island.

Both the air force and Leonardo jointly market the IFTS to international air forces, and the school also has secured accreditation as one of the NATO Flight Training Europe (NFTE) campuses alongside the Czech Republic’s Flight Training Center at Pardubice, potentially leading to more nations joining the IFTS. The NATO Flight Training Europe effort is part of an alliance bid to reduce European allies’ reliance on U.S. training facilities, but how this will work at the IFTS has yet to be fully defined, Leonardo officials say.

The air force’s role in leading the IFTS is well appreciated by international customers, says Carmine Russo, Leonardo’s head of IFTS marketing.

“When you send young guys thousands of kilometers away from home to a civilian [training] entity, it can become difficult to monitor their military attitude . . . . So the military control of IFTS is definitely appreciated from our partner air forces,” Russo says.