Next time I’ll be faster. Definitely I ain’t no slow man 😛

Nice pix anyway.

Hi Glendora,

Interesting stuff.

I found this article stating Italy will operate 58 Tornados up to 2025 with about 78 in service.

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-defense-perspective/2013-03-15/italy-will-further-upgrade-tornados-weapons

Tornado upgrades are:

RET6 – 18
RET7 – 15
RET8 -25

So will RET6 a/c be retired soon as well as 20 non-upgraded aircraft?

Also do tell more about AMX Squadrons and operations – we English speakers seldom here about this plucky little jet.

Hello thobbes,

About the Italian Tornados
The article you linked is substantially correct but for an important detail: currently the Service does not operate 88 machines between IDS and ECR.

Many A/C were written off during over 25/30 years of service not only for crashes as the ones reported in http://www.tornado-data.com/Production/Italian%20Crash%20Data.pdf ,
but also for the end of the service life of the airframe, or else for damages not worth to repair.

At the moment the Italian fleet comprises 42 Tornado + some more grounded waiting for spares and/or for the RET8 overhaul.

On the other hand, the fleet was quite extensively used since the early ’80s, so this attrition rate seems normal to me.

To solve any doubt could be enlightening to note that the machines qualified for the RET 6-8 updates were chosen as follow between the airworthy a/c:

RET6: airframes with the shorter service live remaining (but anyway worth an upgrade)
RET7: airframes with medium service live remaining
RET8: airframes with longer service life remaining

Also, as you linked, the RET6 took place between 2004 and 2006. Then the RET6 Tornados were further used, also in A-stan and Libya.

As the RET8 updates are being delivered, the RET6 a/c will be withdrawn (hence the number of 40 I indicated in my previous message). Then also the RET7 will be retired and finally the RET8 Tornados will remain in service until 2025, when the deliveries of the F-35 are supposed to being already underway.

(OFC, due to the current economic situation, the 90 F-35 are still under serious risk of being axed).

Note that in the 25 RET8 lot there are also 15 ECR (a specialty of which the AMI is particularly proud of), which will be the last to be retired.

About the AMX
Well, what is available on wiki or other sites is generally correct.

After a troublesome commissioning and problems with that particular version of the (else very reliable) Sprey engine, the a/c had many chances to show its worthiness and a relative low operating and maintaining costs.

The development costs were quite high though, there were no foreign exports that could have lowered the unit cost and the only Countries operating the a/c were the 2 partner nations.

At the end of the cold war and the fall of Soviet Union there were on the market a number of new and second hand F-16 capable of doing the same missions of the AMX + much more, at an acquisition cost similar to the AMX.

Even in Italy many thinks that it would have been much better a “single step” acquisition of F-16, instead of spending huge funds in the AMX program, in the expensive F-104 updates and in the subsequent PEACE CAESAR F-16 leasing from the USA.

Anyway after the initial problems were solved, “il Topone” (the Big rat, as it’s nicknamed by the Italian crews, while the official name is “Ghibli”) has been extensively and effectively used.

About the operational history, the wiki page is quite correct and it’s worth a reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX_International_AMX#Operational_history
you can see that it was extensively used since the operations in Serbia and Kosovo.
Also there are some interesting numbers on the missions performed by Italian Air Force and Navy over Libya which could be not generally well known. Also, the AMX in A-stan was used not only in Recce role but also in ground attack and CAS missions, since the Italian parliament authorized the use of bombs a few years ago.

Note that the first tranche of 60 single seat and 12 two seat was retired in 1996, because of some structural deficiencies deemed too expensive to overhaul and maintain, especially in light of the new geopolitical situation in Europe/Russia.

So at the moment there are about 36 a/c updated to the ACOL standard still in service + some more grounded.

About the squadrons operating the AMX, again please refer to the wiki page, but the numbers of a/c is lower then indicated, so in the near future all the remaining aircraft will be assigned to a single Stormo (wing) based on two Gruppi (squadrons).
Probably the wing going to stand down is the 51st of Istrana, while the 32nd will keep operating the AMX until 2020 circa and should be the first Italian wing to receive the F-35 (as above, the acquisition of the latter is under risk of being substantially axed).

I hope that all this makes sense, sorry for being not very synthetic and if you have further questions, feel free to drop a line.

Ah, and thanks for proposing this thread: if continously updated, this could be a handy unofficial resource to track numbers of substantial interest for aficionados like us 🙂

The figures for Italy sound a bit too optimistic for who is familiar with the Italian Services.
RID, the most reliable magazine about Italian Military, wrote of 36 AMX ACOL and 42 Tornado in service as of February 2013. The number of Tornado to remain in service updated to the latest RET-7 and RET-8 standards will be 40.

USAF To Ground 17 Combat Air Squadrons

The U.S. Air Force will begin grounding combat air squadrons Tuesday in response to forced spending cuts that have eliminated more than 44,000 flying hours through September….

…The Air Force’s budget for flying hours was reduced by $591 million for the remainder of fiscal 2013, making it impossible to keep all squadrons ready for combat,

12 more squadrons will be kept at a reduced readiness level called “basic mission capable” for part or all of the remaining months in fiscal 2013.

In the article linked there is the full list of the grounded, basic mission capable and combat mission ready squadrons for USAF throughout the world. You can see that the combat mission ready squadrons are less then the formers.

I think this was the most noticeable effect of sequestration until now.

No,
I don’t agree with you. We are thinking to different aircraft. I’d rather agree with swerve, who wrote:

What they need is something able to take on their peers (who, like them, can’t buy F-35s or the like), & enforce airspace sovereignty.

If you have to confront J-20s you have to rely on something different then an affordable and light a/c.

Four bid in Polish AJT contest

They are: Czech Aero Vodochody, which is offering the L-159T1; Alenia Aermacchi, with the M-346 Master; BAE Systems, with the Hawk AJT; and Lockheed Martin UK, probably pitching the T-50 Golden Eagle, which was developed jointly by Lockheed and Korea Aerospace Industries….

Warsaw is interested in acquiring eight newly manufactured AJT aircraft. Unofficially, technical negotiations are to start in mid-July, and final offers should be submitted in November. The winner will be chosen by year-end…

May be of interest to this discussion – TangoIII already pointed it in the Military Aviation News thread:
Turkey and SAAB will develop a new fighter aircraft

Turkish Defense Industry Undersecretary Murad Bayar announced that Turkey will develop a new fighter aircraft meant to replace the fleet of F-16s currently used by the Air Force, thanks to a technical collaboration agreement signed by Sweden’s SAAB and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).

Since Turkey seems still committed to the the F-35, this new type should be quite cheap and light since it will have to replace the F-16, if not cheap (btw I don’t like this word – shouldn’t instead be used “affordable” for military aircraft?) and light in absolute terms.

Edit: obviously this new type will never have a market share of 1000-2000 units sold – as the thread title suggests, anyway still I think this is an intersting new.

mack8, I am not here to be appelled “dude” by you, and I don’t think you can give me any suggestion on how to analyze any sort of text.

That said, after reading the quantity of ungrounded claims, misinformations and pure biological compost you had the courage to post in this thread, I am just going to ignore you.

Believe it or not, someboiy still thinks the earth is spherical.

Edit for sheytanelkebir: I think that I am perfectly able to read and focus on the thread. Maybe it’s your personal familiar involvment in the conflict that prevent you from any reliable analysis.

Again, if Iraq had any capability left for intercepting anything (or to fly something) why his aircrafts flew to his very friendly Iran neighbor after just a few days of conflict?