Dysko

In passato ho giocato tanto a SF2. Veramente tanto. È partito tutto da un DVD di Strike Fighters Gold trovato per caso in edicola nella mia ultima estate "di libertà", quella tra l'esame di maturità e l'inizio degli studi universitari. È stato una droga per me. Come mod c'era TUTTO. Per me che non ho un "aereo preferito" è stato come trovare una miniera d'oro. Potevo aggiungere tutto quello che volevo, provare di tutto. Mi piaceva anche per la sua semplicità. Non c'era bisogno di prendere un type rating per poter effettuare una missione, ma allo stesso tempo non era un banale sparatutto come Ace Combat. E poi le persone conosciute su questo forum. Alcune delle amicizie strette su questo forum sono poi diventate amicizie nella vita reale, condividendo anche viaggi ad airshow. Mi sono sempre piaciuti gli scenari what-if, in particolare del tipo "Cold War gone hot" (...ai tempi non potevo pensare che potesse succedere veramente ). Però ok, bello il Fulda Gap, ma quanto sarebbe bello sfrecciare in mezzo alle Alpi e colpire le truppe dell'Est che cercavano di avanzare da Gorizia? Ai tempi questo scenario lo volevamo tutti, ma è sempre stato "lontano". Poi piano piano la comunità si è ristretta, delusa dalla mancanza di aggiornamenti per SF2 e attratta dai continui sviluppi di DCS. Io stesso ho abbandonato il mondo di SF2 per DCS (sì, nonostante ci voglia un type rating per volare. Potete mettere pure il meme "Sei diventato ciò che hai giurato di distruggere!" da Star Wars ). E alla fine trovo questo scenario finalmente rilasciato. SF2 è ormai un lontano ricordo sul mio hard disk, eppure la voglia di rimettermi lì ad installare tutto c'è. Ci sarà un ritorno alle origini? Perché dopotutto, come ho letto su un altro forum anglofono, "Strike Fighters è come la tua prima ragazza. Avete passato dei momenti indimenticabili insieme, ma alla fine vi siete dovuti rassegnare al fatto che non siate fatti l'uno per l'altra. Però 2 giri ancora ce li faresti" Grazie per il tuo impegno, e in bocca al lupo per la tua salute!

Update from Italy. First of all, please understand that every region in Italy has some decision-making autonomy on several issues, including healthcare. This is what happened: Every region except for Lombardy: "Let's perform swabs on every suspect case, especially if they are sure they were in contact with a confirmed positive case, so we can trace the outbreak" Lombardy: "Naah, let's perform swabs only on those who are hospitalized" Result: Every region except for Lombardy: the outbreak is more or less contained. Death rate is on par with rest of the world. Lombardy: positive cases are coming out of the goddamn walls. Death rate is 4x than the rest of the world. Several people who were told to just self-isolate are often found dead at home (especially the elderly) without ever being tested (so they do not even appear in the official statistics). This March several towns reported 5x the number of deaths compared to the average number of deaths in March in the last few years, and often less than half of these are officially recognised COVID-19 cases. Not only that, but in the last days a decrease in the number of daily discovered positive cases in Lombardy was reported. It turned out that less daily swabs were performed. As they increased again the number of daily swabs, daily positive cases started increasing again. Who could have imagined so. I fear the situation here in Lombardy will still worsen for few weeks, as the outbreak reached Milan, the most populous and densely inhabited city in the region and northern Italy. In Milan a new field hospital has been recently completed. And to celebrate its opening, hundreds of journalists were invited in a cramped conference room for a press conference The lockdown should have ended this weekend, but it has been prolonged for another week, and still it will not be enough.

Just to have some fun, here is a compilation of Italian mayors and governors angry with people defying the lockdown:

This is what is happening ~20 km from where I live: http://www.ansa.it/lombardia/notizie/2020/03/18/coronavirus-colonna-mezzi-militari-a-bergamo-con-feretri_3b4e3a18-8467-4185-ad72-2939cc607f66.html In that photo (taken 3 days ago), an Italian Army truck convoy is transfering corpses from the cemetery of Bergamo (Lombardy's 4th largest city) to other cities because the local crematory is overwhelmed. I used to travel on that same road almost every saturday night, as one of our favourite pubs is near that place. Now my area is the most badly hit. A cluster appeared in a nearby valley almost contemporary to the first clusters in Italy, but unlike the other ones it was decided not to lock down that place to avoid shutting down some important industries. Now the situation is out of control, while the first clusters are more or less contained by now. Local hospitals are full. Bergamo's airport, the third busiest airport in Italy, is now almost exclusively used by Italian Air Force cargo planes transfering patients to hospitals in other regions in bio-containment capsules.

Long time since I last posted here, but I lurk from time to time to search for some good mods and I found this thread... Northern Italy here, from one of the most badly hit provinces of the country. Total lockdown was enacted one week and a half ago. Companies are still open, and it was difficult to persuade my boss to allow me to work from home, since Italian bosses tend to think that smart working is for slackers. Before the lockdown many people behaved very irresponsibly: overcrowding ski resorts (one of them is in an area close to where I live where one of the first clusters was found, which possibly explains why my area is so badly hit) and escaping en masse to the at the time unaffected southern regions, spreading the disease in the whole country. In my area hospitals ran out of ICUs few days ago. Field hospitals are popping out everywhere, but we know they will not be enough to save everybody.

This year the Italian Air Force display team Frecce Tricolori celebrated the 55th Anniversary since its foundation. To celebrate this event, a unusually (for Italy) big airshow was organized on their homebase, Rivolto military airport. The Italian Air Force showed almost all its airplanes, and several foreign display teams and airplanes were invited. Alitalia A319 carrying VIPs, escorted by 3 Typhoons Flag pass by HH-139 Team Paramotoristi Audaci Belgian F-16 Polish MiG-29 Fulcrum. Its livery is dedicated to Eugeniusz Horbaczewski, 3rd top scoring Polish Ace of WW2. Dutch Apache Austrian Saab 105 in Tiger Meet livery Extra 300 flown by Aude Lemordant, current female aerobatic flight world champion Breitling Wingwalkers Finnish Defence Forces display team Midnight Hawks For the first time in Italy, Saudi Hawks Their support C-130 Royal Jordanian Falcons Turkish Stars Spanish Air Force display team Patrulla Aguila Patrouille de France Their support Transall C-160 Polish Air Force's Team Iskra Belgian Air Component display team Red Devils WeFly! Team, an ultralight display team flown by disabled pilots HH-212 for aerial footage KC-767 C-130J-30 Legend Formation, composed by almost every Italian Air Force trainer since WW2: North American T-6 Texan, Fiat G.59, Aermacchi MB.326, MB.339A, MB.339CD and M.346 AW149 HH-101 Caesar, SpecOps version of the AW101 M.346 A flight of Typhoon with tails dedicated to top scoring WW1 Italian Ace Francesco Baracca A replica of Francesco Baracca's Spad XIII. Does the prancing horse drawing on its fuselage look familiar to you? It was Baracca's personal symbol, and after his death the Baracca family donated the symbol to a young Enzo Ferrari, telling him "Put this symbol on your racing cars. It will bring you luck". The only change was the tail, moved to upright position. F-2000 Typhoon Inflight refueling demo between KC-130J and HH-101... ...and between KC-767 and Tornado with AMX Frecce Tricolori, which sported a slightly revised livery to celebrate the anniversary. The new figure, the "Scintilla Tricolore" ("3-coloured spark"). That's all, thanks for watching :)

Yes ;)

During the 27/28 june weekend, I had the chance to attend 2 fly-ins in 2 days. The first one is the Oris Fly-In 2015, organized by the Swiss watchmaking company Oris on the former Swiss military airport of Ambri. Fliegermuseum Altenrhein's Hunter trainers Patrouille Suisse ...and their support plane Antonov An-2 You can never have too many Antonov An-2s! Dewoitine D.26 P3 Flyers PC-7 Ubiquitous yellow Piper Cubs Aerobatic planes Yakovlev Yak-52 Other interesting historical planes 2 delta-canard general aviation planes Visitors' apron The second one is Historical Aircraft Group Italy's yearly airshow, the FlyParty, on a small airfield near Padua, Italy. Cessna 310 Cessna O-1 Bird Dog Fiat G.46 Stelio Frati Pylon Race T-6 Texan Simulated dogfight between a replica of Manfred von Richtofen's Fokker Dr.I... ...and a Tiger Moth, which is easily "shot down" Stearman Aermacchi MB.308 Stinson L-5 Sentinel Boredom Fighters Team Loehle 5151 Mustang The only 2 airworthy historical jets in Italy, MB.326 and Jet Provost belonging to the Volafenice flying museum 2 generations of Aermacchi trainers flying side by side Belgian Air Force display team "Red Devils", for the first time in Italy

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo a tutti!

This week, Ghedi air base hosted the Steadfast Noon 2014 exercise. The objective of Steadfast Noon exercises is to train NATO crews in loading, unloading and employing the euphemistically called "special weapons". Italian Air Force 6° Stormo's Tornado IDS, based here in Ghedi German Luftwaffe Tornado IDS Polish Air Force F-16 The Turkish Air Force flew both a single-seat F-16... ...and a two-seat one: USAF F-16, based in Aviano Dutch Air Force F-16 Tiger Meet drop tanks Belgian Air Component F-16 Learjet 35 used by a German civilian company as an electronic warfare threat simulator (notice the ECM pods loaded under its wings)

The FlyParty is a small airshow organized every year by the Historical Aircraft Group, an Italian association for historic aircraft restorers, pilots, owners or simply enthusiasts. This year it was held on Montagnana airfield, a small airfield a one hour's drive from Venice. Obviously, it is nothing like Duxford or La Ferté-Alais, but it is one of the few chances to see airworthy historical aircraft in Italy :) This Waco UIC will SURELY attract your attention :) It is a Pearl Harbour survivor: it was flying over Hawaii when the IJN airplanes attacked, and it was attacked itself by 2 fighters. Stearman T-6 Texan This is a Piaggio P.166, an evolution of the amphibian general aviation plane P.136. Stelio Frati Pylon Race, a race dedicated to the airplanes designed by engineer Stelio Frati. Frati used to design some of the best-looking general aviation planes ever built, and their high performances made them the Ferrari of the air! This is a Procaer F.15 Picchio. Frati's most famous plane is the SIAI-Marchetti SF.260. The Boredom Fighters Team flies 2 Wolf W-11 Boredom Fighters homebuilt biplanes. The HAG President flies this beautiful Macchi MB.308. The MB.308, nicknamed Macchino ("Little Macchi"), was the first airplane built in Italy after World War 2. This particular plane was flown by Industria Cortometraggi Milano ("Milan Short Film Company", INCOM for short, and this explains the registration), which used this plane to take aerial footage for the newsreel La settimana INCOM ("INCOM Weekly"). The MB.308, one Stearman and the Boredom Fighter Team flew this "Missing Man" formation in memoriam of the 4 Italian Air Force officers who lost their life on 19 august 2014 in the crash of their 2 Tornados. Stampe et Vertongen SV.4 Cessna O-1E Bird Dog in the livery it wore when it was used as an observation and liaison plane by the Italian Army. In Italy it is possible to see lots of airworthy Stinson L-5 Sentinel. Used by the USAAF during the liberation of Italy in WW2, they were deemed too expensive to be brought back in the USA after the war, and they were donated to the Italian Air Force. The Italian Air Force then gave them for free to various gliding clubs as towing planes, where some of them are still used. This strange flying... thing is the AeroGallo ("Air Rooster"), a one-of-a-kind homebuilt ultralight. It even has speakers on the outside to make the rooster's cry, and when its display ends the livery designer goes near the runway with a giant fake hunting rifle to "shoot" him down! Oh, and the pilot flies it dressed like a chicken! Cessna 310, Tom & Jerry special livery ERCO Ercoupe Formation with acro glider champion Luca Bertossio, his tow plane and the Blue Voltige display duo, flying Fournier motorgliders. Loehle 5151, a scaled-down replica of a P-51 Mustang. A Yakovlev Yak-9 replica with an Allison engine. The only 2 airworthy historic jets in Italy, an Aermacchi MB.326E and an Hunting Jet Provost, both of them owned, restored and flown (well, not at the same time like in this picture! :) ) by Renzo Catellani, who also owns the Bird Dog which I showed some photos ago.

Thank you everybody I had to make a correction though... As the owner himself told me, the Blériot XI is not a replica, it's an original plane!

EKW C-3603, a ground attack aircraft developed in Switzerland during World War 2 After WW2, some C-3603 were reengined with turboprops and used as target tugs, becoming the C-3605 Schlepp. Due to the higher thrust-to-weight ratio of turboprop engines, the nose had to be lenghtened in order to maintain the position of the center of gravity. Super Puma F-18 Hornet P3 Flyers This Super Puma was used for air-to-air shots. Notice the camera mounted on the outside. Taking photos of the crowd! Noorduyn AT-16 Harvard De Havilland Vampire Hawker Hunter (ugly livery! :( ) PC-7 Team (which celebrated its 25th Anniversary) Patrouille Suisse (which celebrated its 50th Anniversary) performing a fly-by with a Swiss International Airlines A330 and performing together with the PC-7 Team. Special air ballet for the 100th Anniversary! The ballet was opened by an original Blériot XI! As the Blériot was landing, the Scout Paratroopers descended with the Swiss Flag. The first legacy pass: an F-18 in formation with a Morane-Saulnier MS.406. During the rehearsal day, this pass was performed with a P-51 Mustang in place of the Morane-Saulnier. The only airworthy Dassault Mirage III in Europe and an Hawker Hunter take off for the second legacy pass. In the second legacy pass there are a De Havilland Vampire, the Mirage, the Hunter and a Northrop F-5 Tiger. The Tiger is a two-seater, which are getting rarer and rarer in Switzerland. The third legacy pass shows the Swiss Air Force's helicopters and a Pilatus PC-6 (looks like it can be compared to an helicopter due to its STOL capabilities!) The Super Puma wears a special livery for the 4th Transport Wing's 50th Anniversary (another round anniversary?!? Are they made on purpose?!?) Alouette II Alouette III The fourth legacy pass shows the past of training in the Swiss Air Force, with a Bucker Jungmann, a Pilatus P-3 and a Pilatus P-2. Pilatus P-2 The fifth and last legacy pass shows the present of training, with Pilatus PC-7, PC-9 and PC-21. And finally, the special color Hornet and Super Puma flying together. That's all, thank you for watching!

Polish Air Force Su-22 Fitter Polish Air Force MiG-29 Fulcrum Czech Air Force Mi-24 Hind Tiger Meet livery Czech Air Force SAAB JAS 39 Gripen Belgian Air Component F-16 Falcon French Light Army Aviation Eurocopter Tigre French Air Force's Ramex Delta display duo, flying two Dassault Mirage 2000N nuclear strike bombers. Patrouille de France! Croatian Air Force display team Krila Oluje ("Wings of Storm"), flying Pilatus PC-9 trainers. Croatian Air Force Mi-8 Hip Finnish Air Force display team Midnight Hawks Patrulla Aguila. Pilatus PC-9

Here are the photos I took at Payerne Air Base, in Switzerland, for the Swiss Air Force 100th Anniversary airshow. The airshow is split on 2 weekends (30-31 August, 6-7 September), I could attend only the first one. Red Bull: P-38 Lightning F4U Corsair B-25 Mitchell MBB Bo-105 aerobatic helicopter (aerobatic maneuvers were too far from the public) Breitling: Breitling Jet Team Breitling Wingwalkers Lockheed Super Constellation Douglas DC-3 Classic Formation with a Douglas DC-3 and two Beech 18s. Junkers Ju-52 A-1 Skyraider Notice the sharkmouth on the nose of the drop tank! Yakovlev Yak-3. P-51 Mustang. Comte AC-4, a two-seater training and sport aircraft built by Swiss aviation pioneer Alfred Comte. OV-10 Bronco Much to our surprise, the Royal Canadian Air Force sent 2 CF-18 Hornet for the static display. They were listed for this weekend, but they were later cancelled, so it was a great surprise to see 2 of them detach from their redeployment in Romania! Luftwaffe Panavia Tornado IDS Austrian Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon Austrian Air Force Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk