When Aermacchi's M346 advanced jet trainer prototype took off on a demonstration flight from the company's Varese factory last month, there was no mistaking the influence of Italy's dominant aerospace company in the ceremony. Guest of honour, alongside Finmeccanica's chairman and chief executive Pierfrancesco Guarguaglini, was Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
While the first official flight of the Honeywell F124-powered M346 would be a major event for Italy's aerospace industry regardless of who owned Aermacchi, last year's takeover by Finmeccanica of the Milan-based, family-owned company will add much-needed industrial muscle, as well as political clout to the advanced trainer's prospects in export markets, believes Aermacchi chief executive Giovanni Bertolone.
"We are a small company so we need to be part of a big player like Finmeccanica - it gives us financial strength and the possibility for strong synergies with other Finmeccanica subsidiaries," he says. The parent company's infrastructure will also help in the battle to win this decade's key trainer competition - the Eurotraining requirement to provide 12 European air forces with an advanced trainer and lead-in fighter to enter service around 2012. It will also help in possible future contests in the USA, he says. At the October event, Giorgio Zappa, Alenia chief executive and deputy of chairman of Aermacchi, urged the Italian government to provide funds for development of the M346 to ensure it can meet the requirements of Eurotraining.
Aermacchi, in addition to the M346, assembles aircraft ranging from the piston- or turboprop-powered SF260 primary trainer; the M290TP Redigo turboprop and S211A turbofan basic trainers; the MB339 advanced jet trainer; and the AM-X strike fighter, produced with Alenia and Embraer. The company forecasts three-quarters of the world's 3,000 trainer aircraft will be replaced over the next 25 years. Of these, Aermacchi believes it can secure around 600 to add to the roughly 2,000 aircraft is has sold to 40 countries over the past 40 years.
MURDO MORRISON / MILAN
Source: Flight International
