WATCH: Israeli Air Force Displays New Planes
This coming summer, Lavi planes will join the Israeli Air Force fleet. They are a new aircraft Israel acquired from Italy in order to train the next generation of fighter pilots. Just before it enters the Israeli Air Force, increased flights over Italy are expected to demonstrate its capabilities.
After the auctions announcement and the selection of the next training aircraft for the Israeli Air Force, where an Italian plane was favored over a South Korean plane, Israeli Air Force pilots went out to inspect the new purchase over Italian skies.
The M346 plane, which will be known in the Israeli Air Force as the Lavi, is exactly the type of fighter plane that the Israeli aircraft industry tried to produce in the 1980’s, until the Israeli government decided to give up the huge budgetary expenditure in developing this.
The feeling now in the planes flight clarifies how difficult it is to fly in real conditions. The Israeli Air Force chose this plane principally because it is considered very safe and has the ability to perform a long series of actions easily such as voice commands without the pilots’ hand leaving the stick, the wheel of the plane. “I changed the radio channel using only my voice,” a test pilot stated.
The plane also has a red button. If the pilot is somehow unable to fly the plane, by pressing the button, the plane flies by itself, thus giving the pilot time to recover and continue flying. The Italian manufacturer assured that despite two crashes during test flights, the plane passed the examinations and with the extensive changes, it is now a perfectly safe plane. The Israeli Air Force bought 30 training planes for about 30 billion dollars.
