Italy Plans To Buy New Gulfstream G550s For SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) Missions
Italy Plans To Buy New Gulfstream G550s For SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) Missions
An Italian Air Force G550 CAEW landing at Nellis AFB during Red Flag. (Image credit: Troupe Azzurra/ItAF)
The program aims to get two fully configured SIGINT Gulfstream G550 aircraft plus six others to be converted later for improved C4ISTAR and CAEW/BM&C capabilities.
The Italian government is working on the acquisition of new Gulfstream G550s to be used in the SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) role. The requirement emerged for the first time in 2009, when the Ministry of Defense requested two JAMMS (Joint Airborne Multi-sensor Multi-mission System) aircraft to replace the single G-222VS (Versione Speciale – Special Version) that was equipped for SIGINT missions in the 1980s. This requirement was found again few weeks ago in the Defense Policy Document for 2020-2022 (Documento Programmatico della Difesa 2020-2022).