Cameri AFB: A Century of Activity October 4, 2009

Photography and brief by Tommaso Munforti

 

  At the end of the 2009 airshow season the Italian Air force has wanted to celebrate the 1st century of activity of its Cameri Air base.

 

  It was the end of October of 1909 when the French engineer Thouvenot, agent of the French factory Voisin, arrived at Cameri.On the 23rd of the same month, Mr. Thouvenot with the agreement of local authority and the Italian War Department started his activity: the Cameri airfield and the first Italian flying school were born in this way.Some months later, exactly on February 17th, 1910 the first successful flying test of a biplane AVIS occurred.

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  In 1911 Thouvenot closed his activities. His place was taken by the Italian engineer Giuseppe Gabardini and his famous trainers: Gabarda, that flew until 1936. Between the 1910 and the WWI Gabardini’s flying school was indeed one of the most important “training centre” all over the world.

During WWI the Gabardini flying school trained about 1000 pilots to get their flying licence, among them the pilot Natale Palli, famous in Europe for having flown over Wien in 1918.

 

  In 1935 the Italian plane manufacturer SIAI transferred completely its production at Cameri airfield. SIAI planes would be known some years later for the transoceanic flight from Italy to America.

Just before the WWII the Gabardini school was closed and the airfield used by Italian Air Force that was created as independent army in 1920.

 

  During WWII the 43rd and 7th bomber wings were located at Cameri AFB, but many other wings arrived and left the base. In 1945 the German troops left the airport destroying it with the only exception of the Headquarter building that it is still used nowadays.
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  Only in 1957 the Base rose again with the arrival of jets: F86E of the 2nd Air Brigade.

In those years the Italian acrobatic team (the Frecce Tricolori didn’t exist yet) belonged to the 2nd Air Brigade and they were famous as “Black Lancers” because of the colour of their fighters with a gold lancer painted on the side.

 

  On the 1964 the 21st fighter wing arrived at Cameri flying the most famous fighter in Italy, the F104 Starfighter (that was completely withdrawn only in 2004). The 21st wing symbol was a tiger and so since 1968 it become a member of the NATO Tiger Association hosting many Tiger meet at Cameri Airport in the following years.

 

  In 1996 the wing received the TORNADO F3 IDV as temporary fighter between F104 and Eurofighter and in 2000 the wing was closed leaving in the base the 1st Maintenance Group that takes care of the maintenance of all Italian Tornados and EFAs.

 

  Even if the strategic importance of the airport decreased after the end of cold war, the technical role increased again in recent years. It is just at Cameri that Agusta-Westland is performing the tests of its tilt-rotor BA 609 and it is always here that the Italian F-35 lightning II will be assembled and tested.
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  To celebrate this very important base, many events were planned in 2009 and the celebrations ended with an airshow on Sunday October 4th. Along the runway a big static display was presented with the most famous airplanes that operated in the Italian Air Force: from T6 to EFA, tiltrotor, not to forget the P80, F84, F86, G91 R, T and Y (that was also evaluated by USAF) F104-G and the AMX. The display included also two special coloured planes: the Fighting Falcon F16 celebrating 1000 flying hours and a Tornado celebrating the 60th anniversary of the 6th wing.

 

  The flying display was opened by a CSAR demonstration of an Agusta HH-3F followed by the display of Tornado and EFA of the Italian experimental wing.  The event was closed by the Italian acrobatic Team: FRECCE TRICOLORI.

 

During the celebration a static replica of Gabarda trainer was also given to the airport from the retired pilot and crewman.