Bracciano military airfield

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Bracciano
"Oscar Savini" military airfield
Agusta-Bell AB-206B JetRanger III, Italy - Army JP6942430.jpg
Characteristics
ICAO code LIRB
Coordinates

42 ° 4 '57 "  N , 12 ° 4' 27"  E Coordinates: 42 ° 4 '57 "  N , 12 ° 4' 27"  E
Height above MSL 260 m (853  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 9 km west of Bracciano
Street SP 2c
Basic data
opening 1951
operator Aviazione dell'Esercito

i1 i3


i7 i10 i12 i14

The Bracciano-Monte dell'Oro "Oscar Savini" military airfield is located in the Italian region of Latium , around 45 kilometers northwest of Rome and almost ten kilometers west-southwest of Bracciano . It is a small army airfield , which should not be confused with the former sea airfield and today's Aviation Museum Vigna di Valle on Lake Bracciano .

location

The airfield is located in the far west of the municipality of Bracciano near Monte dell'Oro . It can be reached via the provincial road SP 2c (Via Lazio, Via Sasso) , which mostly runs in the territory of the neighboring municipalities of Manziana and Cerveteri . For this reason the airport is sometimes (incorrectly) named after the neighboring town of Manziana.

Infrastructure and use

The airfield has two grass runways that cross in the southern area of ​​the airfield area. In the center and in the north there is an asphalt apron, hangars and other facilities of the 1st Idra Support Regiment of the Italian Army Aviation , which is responsible for helicopter maintenance . The airfield is therefore mainly approached by helicopters , which are to be comprehensively overhauled in Bracciano. It is also used in exercises, including by an airborne artillery unit stationed in Bracciano .

history

The airfield is considered to be the cradle of the Italian army aviators, founded (again) in 1951 at the Artillery School in Bracciano. In the train of the formation 1951, the small airfield a small flying unit was set up in Monte dell'Oro and locally propeller-driven aircraft of the type Piper PA-18 (L-18 / L-21) formed of artillery for observation and fire control served and also took over connection and transport tasks. In the following year the unit became an aeronautical training center, at which from 1954 new army aviation units were set up to support various large units . On June 1, 1957, the Bracciano training center moved to the nearby Viterbo military airfield . The Italian instructors had been trained at Fort Sill in the United States since 1950 , with the Italian pilot Oscar Savini being killed in an accident on November 14, 1951. The airfield is named after him today.

In 1953, an aircraft repair unit was built on the airfield. Because it was relatively far from the new flying units in Northern Italy, new repair units were set up in Bologna , Bergamo and Viterbo from 1958 . For this reason, the unit in Bracciano received the ordinal number 1. It was not until 1990 that the unit received a troop flag , and in 1993 it was renamed the 1st Army Aviation Support Regiment "Idra" ( battalion strength ). Over time, the association took over the repair of the following helicopter types (mostly built by Agusta under license from Bell ): AB-47 , AB-204 , AB-205 , AB-206 , AB-212 , AB-412 and Agusta A109 .

  • AB-412 in Bracciano

  • Decommissioned AB-206 in Bracciano

  • Coat of arms of the 1st Support Regiment

Web links