The M-346 starts its activity as “aggressor” for the Italian Air Force’s Eurofighter aircraft

A M-346 of the Italian Air Force’s 61st Air Wing (called T-346A by ItAF) has been temporarily deployed to Grosseto Air Base to start testing the aircraft’s capability as an “aggressor” in dissimilar combat training missions with the Eurofighter of the 20th Squadron OCU, Operational Conversion Unit, of the 4th Air Wing. Starting next August the students of the Italian Air Force who are to fly on the combat aircraft will accomplish the training’s phase IV on the new M-346 – the final step before the passage to the operational airplanes. The capabilities and the characteristics of the M-346 offer the OCU a kind of training very different from the one provided so far. The tests validated the ItAF’s M-346 in the role, among the ones envisaged, of “Red” to train future Eurofighter pilots in DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training) scenarios.