Italian Naval Aviation

Order of Battle · Italy

Italian Naval Aviation

Aviazione Navale · Marina Militare

The Aviazione Navale is the only air arm in the European Union that flies fifth-generation fighters from its own ship — and for fifty-two years, from a law of 1937 to a law of 1989, it was forbidden to own a fixed-wing aeroplane at all.

National markingThe coccarda — green centre, white ring, red outer — with a black fouled anchor laid over it. The anchor is what tells a naval aeroplane from an air force one at a glance
Low-visibilityA subdued grey coccarda with a grey anchor on the F-35B, the Harrier and the NH90; the marking shrank and faded through the 1990s as it did everywhere else
Unit markingA two-part number on the fuselage giving the group and the aircraft, as in 4-01 for the first F-35B of GRUPAER, with the group badge on the fin
25Combat aircraft
7Active air bases
1956Founded
9Types retired
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Darin Russell / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
CountryItalyFounded1956StatusActiveHeadquartersRome (COMFORAER), with the three air stations at Grottaglie, Luni and CataniaCommanderAmmiraglio di divisione Giancarlo Ciappina
The story

The Italian Naval Aviation story: a carrier with no aircraft, and the law that changed it

1913–1937: a naval air service, and then the Regia Aeronautica took it away

Italy had naval aviators before it had an air force. Sottotenente di vascello Mario Calderara took lessons from Wilbur Wright in 1909 and ran Italy’s first flying school at Centocelle in 1910; the battleship Dante Alighieri carried a Curtiss floatplane in 1912; and in June 1913 a ministerial decree formally created the Servizio Aeronautico della Regia Marina. Ammiraglio Paolo Thaon di Revel, appointed chief of the naval staff that July, pushed it hard, and resigned in 1916 when a royal decree tried to put it under the war ministry. By the Armistice the navy had 550 seaplanes, 86 fighters and twenty-five airships; 121 of its people had been killed and it had produced aces of its own, among them Orazio Pierozzi, the most successful Italian naval fighter pilot of the war. On 30 September 1920 the king gave the service its own war flag as the Forza Aerea della Regia Marina. It lasted seventeen more years.

1940–1943: forty-two floatplanes, Taranto and Matapan — a fleet with no eyes

The unpicking began in 1931, when a law placed the navy’s air arm under a Regia Aeronautica general and turned its pilots into aerial observers. A further law in 1937 handed every military aeroplane in Italy to the air force, which took on the naval task through an Aviazione Ausiliaria per la Marina that answered to itself. The result was a fleet that went to war in 1940 with forty-two IMAM Ro.43 floatplanes, catapulted off battleships and cruisers, recovered by crane with the ship stopped, which in practice meant one sortie per voyage. Against that, the Royal Navy put twenty-one Swordfish over Taranto on the night of 11 November 1940 and crippled three battleships, and at Cape Matapan in March 1941 carrier aircraft from Formidable set up a night action that cost Italy three heavy cruisers, two destroyers and about two thousand sailors in a single night. Two liners were taken in hand as the carriers Aquila and Sparviero; work stopped in June 1943 and neither ever flew an aircraft.

1950–1976: two Helldivers confiscated at Capodichino, and a law about 1,500 kilograms

The 1947 peace treaty banned Italy from owning aircraft carriers, and NATO membership quietly voided that clause — but the 1937 law was Italian, and it stayed. The point was made brutally in December 1952. The United States handed the navy two Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldivers, painted with an anchor in the roundel, for the express purpose of rebuilding a naval air arm; when Gabbiano I and Gabbiano II reached Naples-Capodichino on 19 December the air force took them on charge, and refused to recognise the flying and technical qualifications the navy’s people had earned in the United States. The way round was weight. A law of 1956 limited the air force’s monopoly to fixed-wing aircraft above 1,500 kg, and on 1 August 1956 the navy stood up the 1° Gruppo Elicotteri with five Agusta-Bell AB-47G at a small heliport at Augusta. Law 968 of 7 October 1957 then created the Aviazione Antisommergibile: air force squadrons with crews half-manned by the navy, air force logistics, navy operational control. It was a compromise that satisfied nobody and lasted forty years.

1977–1991: a carrier with no aircraft, nineteen senators, and Law 36

Helicopters gave the navy a reason to build ships to carry them — the Bergamini-class frigates of the early 1960s were the first purpose-built helicopter frigates in the world — and by the late 1970s the logic had run all the way to a flight deck. The Giuseppe Garibaldi was laid down in 1981, given a ski-jump during construction, and entered service on 30 September 1985 as a through-deck cruiser with a 174-metre flight deck and not one aeroplane, because the law still said she could not have any. On 20 December 1984, with the ship fitting out at Monfalcone, nineteen senators put their names to bill no. 1083 asking for a naval air arm; the first signatory was Severino Fallucchi, a retired admiral. It took more than four years. Law no. 36 of 1 February 1989, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 8 February, ran to five short articles, funded at two billion lire, and let the navy own embarked aircraft — while article 2 expressly kept air defence with the air force and article 4 obliged the navy to use air force test establishments.

1991–2016: the Harrier years — Somalia, Albania, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya

The navy chose the American AV-8B Harrier II Plus over the British Sea Harrier and ordered eighteen: two TAV-8B trainers and sixteen radar-equipped single-seaters, the last built under licence by Alenia and delivered in November 1997. The Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati was constituted on 1 February 1991; the first two aircraft were handed over at Cherry Point on 7 June 1991 and formally received aboard Garibaldi at Norfolk on 23 August. Then it flew. Somalia in 1995, covering the United Nations withdrawal; armed alert sorties out of Grottaglie for Albania in 1997; thirty sorties and 63 flying hours over Kosovo from 13 May 1999 with Mk 82s, GBU-16s and Mavericks; 288 missions and 860 flying hours over Afghanistan from the deck between December 2001 and March 2002, flying more than 1,500 km each way; Lebanon in 2006; and Libya in 2011, where Garibaldi served as command ship from 25 March to 26 July 2011 and her air group flew 1,221 hours. It was a small force used hard, and it is fair to say it justified the argument of 1989.

2017–2026: the F-35B, a flag lowered at Yokosuka, and a ship given to Indonesia

The Cavour, in service since 10 June 2009, was rebuilt for the F-35B in 2018–19 at Taranto: about 74 million euros, a metallised flight deck to take a 27-tonne aeroplane where the Harrier weighed 14, and a new approach and landing system. The first Italian naval F-35Bs came home from Beaufort on 16 December 2022, escorted in by Harriers, and on 26 August 2024 the chief of the naval staff, Ammiraglio di squadra Enrico Credendino, declared initial operational capability from the deck — standing on Cavour alongside the frigate Alpino at Yokosuka, four months early, after 2,600 flying hours and 2,700 maintenance actions on a five-month Indo-Pacific deployment. The inter-service argument never ended: the air force reactivated its own F-35B squadron, the 101° Gruppo, at Amendola on 1 July 2025, and the two services settled on two bases rather than one. The Harrier is still flying, older than the pilots who fly it. And on 24 August 2026 the Garibaldi, the ship the whole fight had been about, lowered her flag at Taranto for the last time and sailed for Indonesia as a gift.

The unpicking began in 1931, when a law placed the navy’s air arm under a Regia Aeronautica general and turned its pilots into aerial observers.Italian Naval Aviation · verified 2026-09-19
At a glance

The Italian Naval Aviation in numbers

Service

Native name
Aviazione Navale

  • The command is the Comando delle Forze Aeree, COMFORAER
  • Its people are i marinai del cielo, and the fixed-wing pilots of the carrier air group call themselves lupi — wolves

Earlier names: Servizio Aeronautico della Regia Marina from June 1913, and Forza Aerea della Regia Marina from 30 September 1920, when Vittorio Emanuele III granted it a war flag. The flag was later decorated with the silver medal for military valour for the First World War.

Founded
1 August 1956 (origins 1913)The modern arm dates from 1 August 1956, when the first Agusta-Bell AB-47G helicopters formed the 1° Gruppo Elicotteri at the MariEliport at Augusta in Sicily. Its lineage runs back to the ministerial decree of June 1913 that created the Servizio Aeronautico della Regia Marina, and English-language references normally give the dates as 1913–1937 and 1956 to the present.
Part of
Marina MilitareOne of the four Italian armed forces. The Aeronautica Militare is a separate service with its own F-35Bs; the army has its own aviation arm, the AVES. The Capitanerie di porto — Guardia Costiera is legally a corps of the navy but is run for day-to-day purposes by the transport ministry, and its ATR 42s and AW139s are not counted here.
Command
COMFORAER, RomeComando delle Forze Aeree, established in 1999 and operational from 1 January 2000, under the commander-in-chief of the naval squadron (CINCNAV). It received its war flag from President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on 10 June 2005. The post carries with it the job of head of the 6th Aircraft Department of the naval staff, which is why a commander who is formally a rear admiral of the lower half can hold a higher rank.
Organisation
  • MARISTAER Grottaglie — GRUPAER (fixed wing) and the 4° Gruppo Elicotteri
  • MARISTAELI Luni — 1° and 5° Gruppi Elicotteri
  • MARISTAELI Catania — 2° and 3° Gruppi Elicotteri
  • SEZAER Pratica di Mare — the P-180 air section

Aircraft do not belong to ships. COMFORAER assembles helicopter and aircraft sections to order, picking the airframes, the fit and the people, and assigns them to a frigate, a destroyer or the carrier for a deployment. Two standing specialist units sit inside the helicopter groups: the Reparto Eliassalto of the 1° Gruppo, which works with the COMSUBIN frogmen and raiders, and the Nucleo Lotta Anfibia of the 4° Gruppo, formed on 2 May 1994 to support the San Marco marines.

The legal question
Law no. 36 of 1 February 1989Five articles, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale of 8 February 1989, that allowed the navy to own embarked fixed-wing aircraft for the first time since 1937 — with two conditions that still bite. Article 2 leaves the organisation, direction and control of all air defence with the air force. Article 4 obliges the navy to use air force technical bodies for the study, testing and trials of its embarked aircraft. Article 5 funded it with two billion lire for 1989 and was repealed in 2010 when the defence code was consolidated.

Strength

Personnel
about 2,000–4,000The services do not publish a current figure and the two that circulate are far apart: the navy’s own English-language page gave about 2,000 in 2015, and Italian-language reference works say a little over 4,000. MARISTAELI Luni alone accounts for about 600 people, which makes the lower figure look like aircrew and technicians only. Treat any single number with suspicion.
Aircraft
about 124, plus 12 drones

  • Combat and trainer jets — 22
  • Helicopters — 99
  • Fixed-wing liaison — 3
  • Uncrewed — 12 air vehicles in two systems

Built up from FlightGlobal’s World Air Forces 2026 directory, which is the only published type-by-type count. Ares Difesa counted exactly 100 helicopters in 2022; the small shrinkage since is the AB-212 line running down and one NH90 lost.

Carrier fighters
10 F-35B and 12 HarriersTen F-35B delivered of twenty contracted, and eleven AV-8B+ plus one TAV-8B left of the eighteen Harriers bought. Both types belong to one squadron, GRUPAER at Grottaglie; the navy has never had more than one fixed-wing flying unit. In practice the Cavour can work eight to ten fast jets alongside the helicopters she also has to carry.
Helicopters
about 99

  • NH90 SH-90A — 45, anti-submarine and anti-surface
  • NH90 MH-90A — 10, amphibious and special forces
  • AW101 SH-101A — 10, anti-submarine and anti-surface
  • AW101 MH-101A — 8, assault and vertical replenishment
  • AW101 EH-101A — 4, airborne early warning
  • AB-212 SH-212A / MH-212B — 22, being run down

Twenty-two AW101 and fifty-five NH90 are the backbone. The four early-warning AW101s are the rare capability: outside the Royal Navy, almost nobody else flies a radar picket helicopter from a deck, and they were reported held in reserve in 2022 while the navy decided whether to convert them to utility machines.

Ships that fly aircraft
1 carrier, 1 amphibious ship, about 20 escortsCavour (550) is the only fixed-wing carrier. Trieste (L 9890), delivered on 7 December 2024 and presented with her battle flag on 26 October 2025, has a ski-jump and is meant to become the alternative carrier when Cavour is in dock, but the work to clear her for the F-35B is a ten-year programme that only began in 2025. The Giuseppe Garibaldi (551) left the fleet on 24 August 2026. Every frigate and destroyer carries one or two helicopters, and three San Giorgio-class amphibious ships and the new logistic support ships have decks of their own.
Uncrewed
2 Camcopter S-100, 10 ScanEagleThe S-100 rotary-wing drone was trialled from the amphibious ship San Giusto in 2014 and the ScanEagle flies from the FREMM frigates. On 25 March 2026 the navy told a Senate hearing it intends to put the Bayraktar TB3 on the Cavour, acquired through LBA Systems, the Leonardo–Baykar joint venture, which would make Italy the first European operator of the type.

Infrastructure

Air stations
3, plus one air section

  • MARISTAER Grottaglie (LIBG) — fixed wing and embarked helicopters for Taranto
  • MARISTAELI Luni (LIQW) — AW101 and NH90, and the trials and training centres
  • MARISTAELI Catania (LICC) — AB-212 and the specialist school
  • SEZAER Pratica di Mare (LIRE) — three P-180 Maritime

Not one of them is a naval airfield in the sense that Landivisiau or Yeovilton is. Grottaglie and Catania are civil airports on whose runways the navy is a tenant, Luni is a military field shared with the coast guard and a flying club, and Pratica di Mare belongs to the air force. The navy has never owned a runway of its own.

Longest runway
3,200 m at GrottaglieOne of the longest runways in Italy, which is why it can take a strategic transport and why it has been designated as Italy’s first spaceport. The navy’s own site description gives the length as 3,280 m. The navy enclave covers 160 hectares inside a perimeter of a little over 6 km and has five hangars, one of them leased to the Guardia di Finanza.
Shortest runway
905 m at LuniJust long enough for a light aeroplane and quite long enough for a helicopter. The field can also take V/STOL aircraft, which has mattered more than once. Luni holds the Helo Dunker ditching trainer, one of very few in Europe and used by other NATO navies, the Centro Sperimentale Aeromarittimo that clears every new helicopter and system for shipboard use, and a Level D full-mission simulator for the NH90 in full MR1 configuration, opened in 2023.
The carrier
Cavour (550), 29,900 t full loadA 220 by 34.5 metre flight deck, seven simultaneous spots, parking for eight more aircraft, 6,800 square metres of usable deck and a 180-metre take-off run ending in a 12-degree ski-jump. Officially 22 aircraft embarked, up to a claimed maximum of 36. Two lifts, a 2,500 square metre hangar, a command suite of about 150 operator positions and a hospital with two operating theatres.
The amphibious ship
Trieste (L 9890), 38,000 tThe largest warship built in Italy since the war: 245 m long, a 230 by 36 metre flight deck with nine spots, two 15 by 15 metre lifts rated at 42 tonnes, a ski-jump, two separate islands in the manner of the British Queen Elizabeth class, and a floodable dock. Delivered on 7 December 2024 and presented with her battle flag on 26 October 2025, home-ported at Taranto. Her F-35B site activation is costed at about 172 million euros over 2025–2034.
Structure

How the Italian Naval Aviation is organised

One organic commander in Rome, three air stations, five helicopter groups and one fixed-wing group. The oddity is the 88° Gruppo at Sigonella — an air force squadron with half-navy crews under navy operational control, the last living piece of a 1957 compromise between two services that could not agree who owned maritime aviation.

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Ammiraglio di divisioneAmmiraglio di divisione Giancarlo CiappinaComandante delle Forze Aeree della Marina Militare (COMFORAER) · in office since 2023
Comando delle Forze Aeree (COMFORAER)Aviazione Navale
Command

Comando delle Forze Aeree

COMFORAER
Rome

The organic command of Italian naval aviation, under the commander-in-chief of the naval squadron. It owns every naval aircraft, fixed- and rotary-wing, and every air station ashore, and is responsible for training, readiness and employment. Created in 1999, operational from 1 January 2000, war flag presented by President Ciampi on 10 June 2005. Its commander is also head of the 6th Aircraft Department of the naval staff.

Air station

Stazione Aeromobili della Marina Militare

MARISTAER Grottaglie
Taranto-Grottaglie

The only naval air station with fixed-wing aircraft. It runs the base and its logistics, the electronics laboratory that looks after aircraft circuit boards, and the stores that supply both the resident flying groups and the flight services of the ships at Taranto. Named after Tenente di vascello Marcello Arlotta, lost over the Adriatic in an airship in the First World War.

Carrier air group

Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati

GRUPAER
Taranto-Grottaglie

The national multirole embarked air component: the F-35B and the AV-8B+ Harrier II Plus. Constituted on 1 February 1991 as the Gruppo Supporto Aerei Imbarcati in anticipation of the Harrier; battle flag received on 28 June 1996, presented by the Andria branch of the naval veterans’ association. Its pilots call themselves lupi, wolves, and are trained in the United States on the T-6B, the T-45 Goshawk and then the Harrier or the F-35B.

Helicopters, Taranto

4° Gruppo Elicotteri

GRUPELICOT QUATTRO
Taranto-Grottaglie

Formed at Grottaglie on 1 March 1976 to prepare and maintain the helicopters embarked in the ships based at Taranto, and to train the navy’s aircrew alongside MARICENTADD. It contains the Nucleo Lotta Anfibia, set up on 2 May 1994 with modified helicopters to work with the San Marco marine regiment, and it flies the Camcopter S-100.

Helicopter station, La Spezia

Stazione Elicotteri della Marina Militare Luni

MARISTAELI Luni
Sarzana-Luni

Opened on 1 November 1968 and named after Ammiraglio di squadra Giovanni Fiorini in 1999. It supports the helicopters embarked in the ships of the La Spezia base and hosts the force’s three centres of excellence. Since the station opened its 600 men and women have flown more than 190,000 hours.

Helicopters, heavy

1° Gruppo Elicotteri

GRUPELICOT UNO
Sarzana-Luni

The oldest unit in the force, formed at Augusta on 1 August 1956 and moved to Luni from Catania in January 1971. Flies the AW101 in its several versions and contains the Reparto Eliassalto, which works from ashore or from a deck with the COMSUBIN raiders and frogmen based nearby.

Helicopters, frigates

5° Gruppo Elicotteri

GRUPELICOT CINQUE
Sarzana-Luni

Constituted on 1 November 1969, the first unit at Luni. It prepares the helicopters that go to sea in the surface ships of the La Spezia base and flies the NH90 in both versions; the first SH-90A was delivered to it on 15 June 2011. Its aircraft also fly firefighting, search and rescue and civil protection work.

Helicopter station, Sicily

Stazione Elicotteri della Marina Militare Catania

MARISTAELI Catania
Catania-Fontanarossa

The cradle of the force: every technical specialist and aircrewman in naval aviation passes through its courses, which last about eight months. It holds the Dilbert Dunker ditching trainer. The station moved to its present site south of the Fontanarossa runway in December 1967 after a tornado destroyed the original hangars.

Helicopters, Sicily

2° and 3° Gruppi Elicotteri

GRUPELICOT DUE e TRE
Catania-Fontanarossa

The 2° Gruppo was formed in 1964 and the 3° in 1968. The 2° has been the long-standing AB-212 unit and the 3° flies the AW101, including the early-warning version. Between them they support the ships based in Sicily and southern waters.

Air section

Sezione Aerea

SEZAER
Pratica di Mare

Three Piaggio P-180 Maritime at the air force base at Pratica di Mare, flying liaison, light logistic transport, medical evacuation and, with a forward-looking infra-red kit, maritime surveillance. Established in 2001 with a single aircraft lent by the air force.

Trials and training

Centro Sperimentale Aeromarittimo e Centro Addestramento e Standardizzazione Volo su Mare

CSA / CASVM
Sarzana-Luni

The CSA, formed on 1 January 2006 out of the EH-101 working group, clears every new helicopter and system for use at sea and answers directly to the naval staff’s aircraft department. The CASVM, formed in 2023, runs the Level D full-mission simulators for the AW101 and SH-90A and the Modular Egress Training System, a 25-metre pool with a ditching simulator used across the Italian services and by allied navies.

Anti-submarine aviation

88° Gruppo Antisommergibile, 41° Stormo

88° Gruppo
Sigonella

Not a navy unit, but the surviving piece of the 1957 compromise: an air force squadron at Sigonella whose crews are mixed air force and navy and which is under navy operational control for anti-submarine search, maritime patrol, photographic and electronic reconnaissance and search and rescue. It flew the Breguet Atlantic until 2017 and now has the ATR P-72A Surveyor.

In service

What the Italian Naval Aviation flies today

Every type on charge, linked to its Book of Beasts page where one exists. Counts are aircraft on the books, not aircraft available on a given day.

Type Role In service Since Units Notes
Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning IIIn service Short take-off and vertical landing multirole fighter: fleet air defence, strike, suppression of enemy air defences and reconnaissance 10 2018 Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati Ten in service in FlightGlobal’s World Air Forces 2026 directory.

More

The navy has contracted twenty — fifteen in the original 2012 commitment and five more added in the 2024 planning document — and its own website says GRUPAER will hold a fleet of twenty when deliveries end.
McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II PlusIn service V/STOL fighter: fleet air defence with a secondary attack role 11 1991 Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati Eleven single-seaters left of sixteen bought, on FlightGlobal’s 2026 figures.

More

Italy ordered eighteen aircraft in 1990 — two TAV-8B and sixteen AV-8B Plus — of which the first three single-seaters were built in the United States and the rest under licence by Alenia, the line being completed in November 1997.
McDonnell Douglas TAV-8B Harrier IIIn service Two-seat conversion and continuation trainer 1 1991 Gruppo Aerei Imbarcati One of the two delivered still in service in 2026.

More

The pair were the very first aircraft the reborn naval air arm owned, handed to Italian crews at Cherry Point, North Carolina, on 7 June 1991.
Piaggio P-180 Avanti MaritimeIn service Liaison, light logistic transport, medical evacuation and light maritime surveillance 3 2001 Sezione Aerea Three aircraft with SEZAER at Pratica di Mare. The first was lent by the air force on 4 October 2001; the navy’s own three were delivered from 2004.
Leonardo (AgustaWestland) SH-101A — AW101 anti-submarineIn service Anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, maritime patrol helicopter, command and control of naval air operations 10 2001 1° Gruppo Elicotteri, 3° Gruppo Elicotteri Ten of the navy’s twenty-two AW101 are in the anti-submarine and anti-surface fit.

More

The first EH-101 was accepted on 19 March 2001 and the type came in three versions: maritime patrol helicopter, helicopter early warning and assault support.
Leonardo (AgustaWestland) MH-101A — AW101 assault supportIn service Amphibious assault, special operations support, vertical replenishment and medical evacuation 8 2001 1° Gruppo Elicotteri Eight of the twenty-two, fitted with a rear ramp for vehicles and loads.
Leonardo (AgustaWestland) EH-101A HEW — AW101 early warningIn service Airborne early warning: long-range air and surface surveillance for the task group and control of the embarked fighters 4 2001 3° Gruppo Elicotteri Four aircraft, reported in 2022 to be held in reserve while the navy decided whether to convert them to a utility fit.
NHIndustries SH-90A (NH90 NFH)In service Anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare from frigates and destroyers, search and rescue, light logistic transport 45 2011 2° Gruppo Elicotteri, 5° Gruppo Elicotteri, 4° Gruppo Elicotteri Forty-six delivered of a line of fifty-six NH90, the last handed over at MARISTAELI Luni on 29 September 2023; one was lost in July 2023, leaving 45 in FlightGlobal’s 2026 count.
NHIndustries MH-90A (NH90 TTH)In service Maritime assault: troop lift, special operations, vehicles and loads through a rear ramp 10 2013 5° Gruppo Elicotteri Ten of the fifty-six NH90 ordered, in the tactical transport configuration with a rear loading ramp.
Agusta-Bell SH-212A / MH-212B (AB-212ASW)In service Anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare from smaller ships, utility and amphibious support 22 1976 2° Gruppo Elicotteri, 4° Gruppo Elicotteri Twenty-two on FlightGlobal’s 2026 figures, against twenty-six counted by Ares Difesa in 2022. Deliveries began in 1976 and the fleet is being run down; no replacement has been contracted.
Schiebel Camcopter S-100In service Shipborne rotary-wing surveillance and reconnaissance drone 2 2014 4° Gruppo Elicotteri Two air vehicles. Trialled from the amphibious ship San Giusto in 2014.
Boeing Insitu ScanEagleIn service Shipborne fixed-wing surveillance and reconnaissance drone 10 2014 — Ten air vehicles, flown mainly from the FREMM frigates.
SH-90A45
AB-21222
AV-8B+11
F-35B10
SH-101A10
MH-90A10
ScanEagle10
MH-101A8

On order

Type Ordered First delivery Notes
Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning IIOn order 10 2026 Ten still to come of the twenty the navy has contracted: fifteen in the original commitment and five added in the 2024–2026 defence planning document, part of an Italian total of 115 F-35 of all versions.

More

The navy’s own website states plainly that GRUPAER will hold twenty F-35B when deliveries end, able to operate from ashore or from the ship for months at a time. Assembly is at Cameri, the only F-35 final assembly line outside the United States.
Formerly operated

Every type the Italian Naval Aviation has retired

9 types, from the First World War seaplanes, fighters and airships to the Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King (Agusta-built). Peak figures are airframes taken on charge over the whole service life, not fleet strength on any one date.

Type Role Peak Served Replaced by Notes
Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King (Agusta-built) Anti-submarine warfare, amphibious assault, transport and search and rescue 36 1968–2013 Leonardo SH-101A / MH-101A (AW101) Thirty-six aircraft in the navy’s own list of retired types, built under licence by Agusta.
Agusta-Bell AB-204AS Shipborne anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare 35 1964–1984 Agusta-Bell AB-212ASW Thirty-five aircraft, 1964 to 1984.
Sikorsky SH-34G / SH-34J Seabat Anti-submarine warfare and, later, special forces and marine transport 15 1959–1979 Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King Fifteen SH-34G in the navy’s retired-aircraft list, 1959 to 1979.

More

The unit histories are harder to reconcile: eleven were on charge by 1964, of which seven burned in the Catania tornado; three worn ex-USS Saratoga machines were given at once and six new-build SH-34J followed between 1964 and 1967, so something over twenty airframes passed through the service. No reconciled total is published.
Agusta-Bell AB-47G, AB-47G2, AB-47J and AB-47J3 Anti-submarine search and attack, observation and training 27 1956–1972 Agusta-Bell AB-204AS Twenty-seven in all across four sub-types: five AB-47G (1956–1972), two AB-47G2 (1957–1968), six AB-47J (1959–1972) and fourteen AB-47J3 (1962–1972).
Agusta A.106 Single-seat shipborne anti-submarine helicopter 2 1965–1972 — Two prototypes evaluated from 1965 and trialled aboard the destroyers of the Impavido class from 1970; the project was abandoned in July 1972.
Reggiane Re.2000 Catapultabile Catapult-launched shipboard fighter 10 1942–1943 — Two prototypes (MM 471 and 485) and eight production aircraft (MM 8281 to 8288).

More

Six were embarked on 8 September 1943 — two on the battleship Roma and one each on Italia and Vittorio Veneto.
IMAM Ro.43 Catapult-launched shipboard reconnaissance and gunnery spotting floatplane 42 1936–1943 Reggiane Re.2000 Catapultabile, in part Forty-two were embarked and ready for use on Italy’s entry into the war in June 1940; 194 were built in all.

More

On 8 September 1943 nineteen were still aboard ship and twenty more with the shore-based naval squadriglie.
First World War seaplanes, fighters and airships Anti-submarine patrol, escort, reconnaissance, bombing and fighter defence over the Adriatic 550 1913–1918 — The service held 550 seaplanes, 86 fighters and 25 airships at the Armistice of 11 November 1918, against roughly thirty seaplanes, two airships and twelve front-line pilots on 24 May 1915.

More

Types included Curtiss flying boats, Morane-Borel, Macchi M.5 and the Caproni Ca.4 and Ca.5 bombers.
Hughes H.369HM Light shipborne helicopter, evaluation only 1 1969– — One aircraft taken on evaluation from 1969.
Air bases

Where Italian naval aviation flies from — and the fields it has left behind

Black pins are active stations and detachments, hollow pins the ones the navy has given up. Not one of them is a naval airfield in the British or French sense: Grottaglie and Catania are civil airports where the navy rents a corner, Luni is shared with the coast guard and a flying club, and Pratica di Mare belongs to the air force.

Active air base Closed or reserveClick a pin to open the base page
Base ICAO Status Runway Units and aircraft
AmendolaF-35B partner basePuglia LIBA Active 11/292,660 m
MARISTAELI CataniaSicilia LICC Active 08/262,435 m
  • 2° Gruppo Elicotteri: Agusta-Bell SH-212A, Agusta-Bell MH-212B
  • 3° Gruppo Elicotteri: Leonardo SH-101A (AW101), Leonardo EH-101A HEW (AW101)
  • Ufficio Corsi
MARISTAELI LuniLiguria LIQW Active 18/36905 m
  • 1° Gruppo Elicotteri: Leonardo SH-101A (AW101), Leonardo MH-101A (AW101)
  • 5° Gruppo Elicotteri: NHIndustries SH-90A, NHIndustries MH-90A
  • Centro Sperimentale Aeromarittimo
  • Centro Addestramento e Standardizzazione Volo su Mare
MARISTAER GrottagliePuglia LIBG Active 17/353,200 m
Pratica di MareSEZAERLazio LIRE Active 13R/31L2,481 m
  • Sezione Aerea: Piaggio P-180 Avanti Maritime
Sigonella88° GruppoSicilia LICZ Active 10R/28L2,462 m10L/28R2,442 m
  • 88° Gruppo Antisommergibile: ATR P-72A Surveyor
Taranto naval basePuglia Active —
Venice-Sant’Andrea seaplane stationVeneto Closed —
  • Squadriglie idrovolanti di Venezia: Curtiss flying boats, Macchi M.5, FBA flying boats
MariEliport AugustaSicilia Closed 1959 —
  • 1° Gruppo Elicotteri (foundation): Agusta-Bell AB-47G, Agusta-Bell AB-47J

No air base matches that search.

Order of battle

Who is stationed where in the Italian Naval Aviation

Flying groups by station. Aircraft do not belong to ships here: COMFORAER assembles a helicopter or aircraft section to order — the airframes, the fit and the people — and assigns it to a frigate, a destroyer or the carrier for the length of a deployment.

MARISTAER Grottaglie · LIBGCOMFORAER
Gruppo Aerei ImbarcatiGRUPAER · Carrier air group · regular
Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II, McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II Plus
4° Gruppo ElicotteriGRUPELICOT QUATTRO · Helicopter group · regular
NHIndustries SH-90A, Schiebel Camcopter S-100
Nucleo Lotta AnfibiaNLA · Amphibious warfare flight · regular
NHIndustries SH-90A, Agusta-Bell SH-212A
MARISTAELI Luni · LIQWCOMFORAER
1° Gruppo ElicotteriGRUPELICOT UNO · Helicopter group · regular
Leonardo SH-101A (AW101), Leonardo MH-101A (AW101)
5° Gruppo ElicotteriGRUPELICOT CINQUE · Helicopter group · regular
NHIndustries SH-90A, NHIndustries MH-90A
Centro Sperimentale AeromarittimoCSA · Flight test and evaluation centre · regular
—
Centro Addestramento e Standardizzazione Volo su MareCASVM · Training and standardisation centre · regular
—
MARISTAELI Catania · LICCCOMFORAER
2° Gruppo ElicotteriGRUPELICOT DUE · Helicopter group · regular
Agusta-Bell SH-212A, Agusta-Bell MH-212B
3° Gruppo ElicotteriGRUPELICOT TRE · Helicopter group · regular
Leonardo SH-101A (AW101), Leonardo EH-101A HEW (AW101)
Ufficio CorsiAircrew and technical school · regular
—
Taranto naval base · Comando in Capo della Squadra Navale
Portaerei Cavour (550)Aircraft carrier · ship
Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II, McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II Plus
Nave Trieste (L 9890)Landing helicopter dock · ship
Leonardo AW101, NHIndustries SH-90A, NHIndustries MH-90A
Portaerei Giuseppe Garibaldi (C 551)1985–2026
McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II Plus, Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King, Leonardo AW101
Pratica di Mare (SEZAER) · LIRECOMFORAER
Sezione AereaSEZAER · Liaison and light transport section · regular
Piaggio P-180 Avanti Maritime
Sigonella (88° Gruppo) · LICZ41° Stormo, Aeronautica Militare
88° Gruppo AntisommergibileMaritime patrol squadron · regular
ATR P-72A Surveyor
Amendola (F-35B partner base) · LIBA32° Stormo, Aeronautica Militare
101° Gruppo Caccia (Aeronautica Militare)Fighter squadron · regular
Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II

No unit matches that search.

Timeline

Italian Naval Aviation milestones, 1914 to today

1913

June: a ministerial decree creates the Servizio Aeronautico della Regia Marina. On 20 July Ammiraglio Paolo Thaon di Revel becomes chief of the naval staff and pushes the new service hard. This is the founding act Italian naval aviation still counts from.

1915

24 May: Italy enters the war with about thirty naval seaplanes, none usable in combat, two airships, twelve front-line pilots, stations at Venice, Porto Corsini and Pesaro, a school at Taranto and the seaplane tender Elba at Brindisi.

1916

7 September: a royal decree places the naval air service under the war ministry. Thaon di Revel resigns; the decree is not carried out and he returns.

1918

11 November: the service ends the war with 550 seaplanes, 86 fighters and 25 airships. It has lost 121 men and won 405 decorations, including two gold medals for military valour.

1920

30 September: Vittorio Emanuele III names the service the Forza Aerea della Regia Marina and grants it a war flag, later decorated with the silver medal for military valour.

1931

A law places the navy’s air arm under a Regia Aeronautica general and reduces its pilots to the role of aerial observers.

1937

A law assigns every military aircraft in Italy to the air force. The navy’s air arm ceases to exist; the maritime job passes to an Aviazione Ausiliaria per la Marina run by the air force.

1940

11 November: twenty-one Swordfish from HMS Illustrious cripple the battleships Littorio, Duilio and Cavour at Taranto. Italy has forty-two Ro.43 floatplanes at sea and no carrier.

1943

June: work stops on the carriers Aquila and Sparviero, converted from liners, at 90 and 40 per cent complete. Neither ever operates an aircraft.

1952

19 December: two Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldivers given by the United States to rebuild a naval air arm reach Naples-Capodichino and are taken on charge by the air force under the 1937 law. It also refuses to recognise the qualifications the navy’s crews earned in the United States.

1956

A law limits the air force’s monopoly to fixed-wing aircraft above 1,500 kg. On 1 August the 1° Gruppo Elicotteri forms at Augusta with Agusta-Bell AB-47G helicopters — the modern Aviazione Navale’s birthday.

1957

7 October: Law 968 creates the Aviazione Antisommergibile — air force squadrons with crews half-manned by the navy, air force logistics, navy operational control — run by a coordination office under the chief of the naval staff and headed by an air force general.

1964

31 October: a tornado hits the hangars at Catania-Fontanarossa at about 2.30 in the afternoon. Seven of the ten serviceable SH-34 Seabats burn to magnesium powder. The station is rebuilt on a new site south of the runway by December 1967.

1969

1 November: the 5° Gruppo Elicotteri forms at the new station at Luni. The helicopter cruiser Vittorio Veneto, able to carry six SH-3D Sea Kings, enters service the same year.

1976

1 March: the 4° Gruppo Elicotteri forms at Grottaglie, and AB-212ASW deliveries begin. The station command follows in 1979.

1984

20 December: with the Garibaldi fitting out at Monfalcone, nineteen senators table bill no. 1083 asking for a naval air arm. The first signatory is Severino Fallucchi, a retired admiral.

1985

30 September: the Giuseppe Garibaldi enters service with a ski-jump, a 174-metre flight deck and no aeroplanes, because the law will not let her have any.

1989

1 February: Law no. 36, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 8 February, allows the navy to own embarked fixed-wing aircraft. Article 2 keeps air defence with the air force; article 4 obliges the navy to use air force test establishments; article 5 funds it with two billion lire.

1991

1 February: GRUPAER is constituted. The first two TAV-8B are handed over at Cherry Point on 7 June and formally received on the Garibaldi at Norfolk on 23 August; they reach Grottaglie on 24 September.

1995

11 January to 23 March: the first operational use of the new air group, covering the United Nations withdrawal from Somalia with Harriers, Sea Kings, AB-212s and army Mangustas flown from the Garibaldi.

1999

13 May: Harriers of GRUPAER begin flying from the Garibaldi over Kosovo — thirty sorties and 63 flying hours with Mk 82 and GBU-16 bombs and AGM-65 Mavericks.

2001

19 March: the first EH-101 is accepted, in three versions — maritime patrol, early warning and assault support. In December the Garibaldi sails for the Indian Ocean, where her Harriers fly 288 missions and 860 hours over Afghanistan.

2009

10 June: the Cavour receives her battle flag at Civitavecchia and enters service. She becomes flagship in 2011.

2011

Libya: the Garibaldi is command ship from 25 March to 26 July on Operation Unified Protector and her air group flies 1,221 hours. On 15 June the first NH90 NFH is delivered to the 5° Gruppo at Luni.

2018

25 January: the first Italian naval F-35B is handed over. It stays in the United States: crews train with VMFAT-501 of the United States Marine Corps under a pooling arrangement signed the same year.

2021

1 March: an F-35B of the Patuxent River Integrated Test Force makes the first landing on the Cavour off Norfolk during the Ready for Operations certification campaign. On 30 July an Italian naval F-35B, MM7454, lands on the ship in the Gulf of Taranto — the first Italian naval deck landing. In November two Italian F-35Bs land on HMS Queen Elizabeth and two American ones on the Cavour.

2022

16 December: the first two Italian naval F-35Bs land on the Cavour after flying home from Beaufort, escorted in by Harriers.

2024

26 August: initial operational capability declared aboard the Cavour at Yokosuka, four months early. On 1 October the Garibaldi goes into reserve and on 7 December the Trieste is delivered.

2026

24 August: the Garibaldi lowers her flag at Taranto and sails for Indonesia, reaching Jakarta on 18 September to become KRI Sriwijaya. In June the United States Marine Corps retires its last Harriers, leaving Italy and Spain.

From the magazine

Italian Naval Aviation news from Afterburner

Everything MiGFlug’s magazine has published on the Italian Naval Aviation and the aircraft it flies. This list refreshes itself — new Afterburner stories appear here automatically.

All stories in Afterburner

Questions & Answers

Everything people ask about the Italian Naval Aviation

What is Italian Naval Aviation?
It is the air arm of the Marina Militare, called the Aviazione Navale and run by a single command, COMFORAER, in Rome. It owns about 124 crewed aircraft — ten F-35B Lightning IIs, twelve Harriers, three Piaggio P-180s and ninety-nine helicopters — from three air stations at Grottaglie, Luni and Catania, plus a small section at the air force base at Pratica di Mare. Its job is carrier strike, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare from frigates and destroyers, amphibious assault, special operations support, airborne early warning and search and rescue. It is entirely separate from the Aeronautica Militare, which flies F-35Bs of its own.
Why was the Italian Navy not allowed to have aeroplanes?
Because of a law. Italy created the Regia Aeronautica as a separate service in 1923; a law of 1931 put the navy’s air arm under an air force general, and a law of 1937 assigned every military aircraft in the country to the air force. The rule survived the fall of the monarchy and the founding of the republic, so that when the United States gave Italy two Curtiss Helldivers in December 1952 specifically to rebuild a naval air arm, the air force took them on charge at Naples-Capodichino and refused to recognise the flying qualifications the navy’s crews had earned in America. A law of 1956 limited the monopoly to fixed-wing aircraft above 1,500 kg, which let the navy have helicopters. Fixed-wing flying came back only with Law no. 36 of 1 February 1989.
What did the 1989 law actually say?
Law no. 36 of 1 February 1989, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale of 8 February, is five short articles long. Article 1 lets the navy deploy embarked aircraft as organic units. Article 2 keeps the organisation, direction, coordination and control of all air defence with the air force. Article 3 says navy personnel with the right military qualifications fly them, with air force pilots assignable if the chief of the defence staff decides. Article 4 obliges the navy to use air force technical bodies for the study, testing and trials of its embarked aircraft. Article 5 funded it with two billion lire for 1989 and was repealed in 2010 when the defence code was consolidated. The bill behind it, no. 1083 of 20 December 1984, was signed by nineteen senators, the first of them a retired admiral, Severino Fallucchi.
How many F-35Bs does the Italian Navy have?
Ten in service, out of twenty contracted. FlightGlobal’s World Air Forces 2026 directory gives ten; the navy’s own website says GRUPAER will hold a fleet of twenty when deliveries end. Fifteen were in the original commitment and five more were added in the 2024–2026 defence planning document. They are assembled at Cameri, the only F-35 final assembly line outside the United States. The Aeronautica Militare flies its own F-35Bs, separately, with the 101° Gruppo at Amendola — which is a different squadron of a different service, not a naval unit.
Does Italy still fly the Harrier?
Yes. Eleven AV-8B Harrier II Plus and one TAV-8B trainer were still on charge in 2026, out of eighteen bought — two trainers and sixteen radar-equipped single-seaters ordered in 1990, the last built under licence by Alenia and delivered in November 1997. The phase-out was once planned for 2023 and has slipped. When the United States Marine Corps retired its last Harriers in June 2026, Italy and Spain became the only operators left in the world. Italy uses the aircraft chiefly as a fleet air defence interceptor with AMRAAM and Sidewinder, with attack as the secondary role — the reverse of the American practice.
Which aircraft carriers does the Italian Navy have?
One, the Cavour (550), in service since 10 June 2009: 29,900 tonnes, a 220 by 34.5 metre flight deck with seven simultaneous spots, a 180-metre take-off run ending in a 12-degree ski-jump, officially 22 aircraft embarked. The amphibious assault ship Trieste (L 9890), delivered on 7 December 2024 and presented with her battle flag on 26 October 2025, has a ski-jump and a 230-metre deck and is meant to act as the alternative carrier, but the programme to clear her for the F-35B runs from 2025 to 2034 and costs about 172 million euros. The Giuseppe Garibaldi, in service from 1985, lowered her flag on 24 August 2026 and was given to Indonesia.
What happened to the Giuseppe Garibaldi?
She was given away. The ship that forced the 1989 law into existence went into reserve at Taranto on 1 October 2024 after a last year as flagship of the NATO Response Force. A transfer to Indonesia was made official on 23 September 2025, reported at the time as a 450-million-dollar deal including a conversion; Italy later dropped the price and ceded her free of charge, saving about five million euros a year in upkeep and roughly 18.7 million in scrapping costs. About a hundred Indonesian sailors trained aboard her at Taranto during 2026. She lowered her flag on the evening of 24 August 2026 and reached Jakarta on 17 September, to be rebuilt by Fincantieri as a helicopter and drone carrier and renamed KRI Sriwijaya.
Where do Italian naval aircraft fly from?
From three air stations and one borrowed apron, and none of them is a naval airfield in the way Yeovilton or Landivisiau is. MARISTAER Grottaglie, on the Taranto-Grottaglie civil airport, holds the fixed-wing group and the 4° Gruppo Elicotteri. MARISTAELI Luni, on a 905-metre military strip near Sarzana shared with the coast guard and a flying club, holds the AW101 and NH90 groups and all the force’s trials, simulation and ditching-training centres. MARISTAELI Catania, on the south side of Catania-Fontanarossa, holds the AB-212 and AW101 groups and the specialist school every technician and aircrewman goes through. SEZAER at Pratica di Mare, an air force base, holds three P-180s.
Does the Italian Navy have airborne early warning helicopters?
It has four, and that is unusual. The EH-101A HEW version of the AW101 carries a long-range search radar to give a task group and its fighters a picture beyond the horizon, a job that on an American or French carrier is done by a fixed-wing E-2 Hawkeye. Outside the Royal Navy almost nobody else flies one. Italy’s four were reported in 2022 to be held in reserve while the navy decided whether to convert them to a utility fit — a budget decision with a real operational cost, and one reason the navy is now looking at a carrier-capable drone, the Bayraktar TB3, to fill the gap.
Is the Italian Coast Guard part of naval aviation?
Not for this purpose. The Capitanerie di porto — Guardia Costiera is legally a corps of the Marina Militare, but it is run day to day by the ministry of infrastructure and transport, and its ATR 42 maritime patrol aircraft and AW139 helicopters are its own, not COMFORAER’s. The two do share a fence: the coast guard’s 1st helicopter section, its main aeronautical store and its flight standardisation centre sit on the same field at Sarzana-Luni as MARISTAELI Luni. The AW139 is a coast guard aircraft, not a navy one.
Why do the Italian Air Force and the Navy both fly the F-35B?
Because neither would give way. Italy committed to thirty F-35Bs; the navy asked for twenty-two, was cut to eighteen and then fifteen, and argued it needed all thirty for the Cavour and later the Trieste, while the air force wanted fifteen for operations from short and unprepared strips. The compromise was two bases — Grottaglie for the navy, Amendola for the air force, where the 101° Gruppo was reactivated on 1 July 2025 — with either service able to hand the other a package of aircraft, pilots and maintainers under its operational command. The chief of the air staff defended the duplication on dispersal grounds. Critics inside the Italian defence community say the country cannot afford two STOVL organisations, and point to the British case, where the RAF absorbed Royal Navy carrier aviation and naval flying disappeared altogether.
How big is the Italian naval air arm compared with the French one?
Smaller, and differently shaped. The French Aéronautique navale has about 178 aircraft and 6,800 people, four naval air bases of its own, a nuclear-powered carrier with catapults and arrestor wires, about 41 Rafale M and three E-2C Hawkeyes. Italy has about 124 crewed aircraft, three air stations on other people’s airfields, a ski-jump carrier and twenty-two fast jets. France can launch a heavy, long-range aircraft and a fixed-wing radar aircraft; Italy cannot. What Italy has that France does not is a fifth-generation fighter at sea today, and two decks that can take it once the Trieste work is done.

Sources & Further Reading

Every fact, checked

Figures verified 2026-09-19. Order of Battle pages are regenerated from a single dataset; if a number here disagrees with a Book of Beasts page, this page is the more recent of the two.

Photographs: Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Darin Russell / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) · Photo: Marina Militare Italiana / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Photo: Colin Cooke Photo / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Photo: Mark Harkin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · Photo: Peng Chen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Photo: Michael Gaylard / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · Photo: Jerry Gunner from Lincoln, UK / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · Photo: Schiebel Group / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Photo: AFP Radio DWDD / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) · Photo: Jerry Gunner / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · Photo: Alan Wilson from Weston, Spalding, Lincs, UK / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Photo: Threecharlie / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Photo: Alchemist-hp / Wikimedia Commons (FAL) · Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) · Photo: Fortepan / Hidvegi Zoltan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)