Students become first RAF pilots to fly solo at Nato flight school in Sardinia

Two student pilots have become the first Royal Air Force trainees to fly solo at Nato's flying training school on the Italian island of Sardinia.

The pair made their solo flights on the twin-engined Aermacchi T-346 Master at the International Flight Training School in Decimomannu, having completed their basic flying training on the Texan T1 in the UK earlier this year.

Launched in 2020, the Nato Flight Training Europe High Visibility Project helped to link up and coordinate training between member states.

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The UK joined the initiative at a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels in October 2023.

Air Commodore Ian Sharrocks, the head of UK Military Flying Training, said: "Access to alternate flying training systems across Europe, which NFTE membership gives us, not only enables us to address periodic fluctuations in demand but also delivers the flexibility for us to increase our support to Nato".

He added: "Crucially this will deliver greater resilience to the RAF frontline, UK defence and all of our Nato partners.

"It is essential that we work together to get the very best out of the assets we have."

Following their first solo flights on the T-346, the first two trainees have now progressed to flying air-to-air and air-to-ground combat training sorties.

They will be posted to either the Typhoon or Lightning frontline Operational Conversion Units upon successful completion of the course.

Twelve RAF pilots will be trained over the next three years at the air base on the Mediterranean island.