Alenia Aeronautica News: Delivery of First Tranche 2 Typhoon to the Italian Air Force 18 November 2008
Important step for the Eurofighter Typhoon, the main European industrial collaborative programme. Alenia Aeronautica, a Finmeccanica company, has officially delivered the first Tranche 2 Eurofighter Typhoon to the Italian Air Force.
The aircraft - IS020 – was flown to Grosseto by Maj. Marco Bertoli, deputy-commander of the IX group of the 4th Wing of ItAF, is the first of a series of 47 enhanced standard fighters which will be delivered to the Italian Air Force until 2013, as layied out in the contract signed in 2004 by the Eurofighter consortium with the four-nation agency NETMA.
The Eurofighter consortium, through its partner industries (Alenia Aeronautica, BAE Systems, EADS CASA and EADS Deutschland), will produce and deliver, in the next 5 years, a total of 323 Tranche 2 Typhoons (including 72 aircraft for Saudi Arabia) to be added to the Tranche 1 Typhoons already delivered.
The Typhoon is today the most advanced defence aircraft available on the market and Tranche 2 aircraft, as compared to previous standard, offer the aircraft, in addition to some structural changes, an enhanced software capacity and a substantial growth capability to enable future developments.
“Delivery of the first Tranche 2 Eurofighter Typhoon – said Col. Carlo Uberti, Director of the Ufficio Tecnico Territoriale Aeromobili of the Direzione Generale Armamenti Aeronautici – represents for the Italian Air Force a further meaningful step forward since it allows it to use new operational capabilities placing it in the vanguard within NATO. The Typhoon permits to accomplish always at best and with the best results our Nation’s air defence tasksâ€.
“This important result that rewards the efforts of Alenia, of the other Finmeccanica companies involved and of our consortium partners – said Giancarlo Anselmino, Senior Vice President, responsible for Alenia Aeronautica’s Defence Aircraft Business Unit – represents a fundamental milestone for the programme. The Tranche 2 is the reference platform for future aircraft development, like Tranche 3, which is under negotiation, and offers better export opportunity on the international marketâ€.
With 620 Typhoons under contract for the programme’s four partner nations (Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and Spain), plus the 15 ordered by Austria and the 72 for Saudi Arabia, the Eurofighter programme can be considered the market leader in the new generation defence aircraft arena.
Source
http://www.eurofighter.com/news/20081118_ItalyT2.asp
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