Italy will train UAS Operators

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The Italian Air Force, which has largely relied on US training for its UAV pilots, may build its own school — and open it to other air forces, officials said.

“Considering current trends, we will have more requests for unmanned aircraft missions than we will be able to satisfy, and our bottleneck is the existing training pipeline,”  Col. Dario D’Ippolito, who leads the Italian Air Force’s Intelligence and Awareness policy office was quoted in Defense News.

Italy already hosts foreign pilots — for manned aircraft — at its Lecce training school.

“We have a vision which mirrors what we are doing at Lecce and which we want to pursue strongly,” D’Ippolito said. “We would be open to pooling and sharing unmanned pilot training within Europe.”

Any changes will be part of a wider reorganization of Italy’s pilot training. Currently, trainee pilots get advanced, or Phase III, training at Lecce, where they fly the Aermacchi MB339A before splitting into groups for specialized fighter, helicopter and support aircraft training.

Officials were cautious on timings or location of the school, but said that preparations could start next year. Once up and running, all UAV pilot training could be brought in-house, they said.

“Training in the US needs one or two years’ advance booking, and right now we have a rising demand for pilots,” said D’Ippolito.

Officials did not reveal how many trained-up UAV crews the Italian Air Force has now, but it has added to the 16 crews that were trained in 2011.

If the decision is made to open the proposed UAV school to non-Italian pilots, the new facility would follow in the footsteps of Lecce, which has trained pilots from 13 air forces from Kuwait to Singapore.