I Reparti del 4° ALTAIR

44° Gruppo Squadroni AVES "FENICE"
BELLUNO

 

L'aerocampo di Belluno, durante la 1° G.M. era sede di un Gruppo Caccia e di un Gruppo Bombardieri. Attualmente sto effettuando delle ricerche presso l'Associazione Arma Aeronautica di Belluno al fine di ottenere informazioni precise riguardo al periodo precedente l'utilizzo della base da parte dell'Aviazione dell'Esercito.

Il 44° "FENICE" trae origine dal RAL (Reparto Aviazione Leggera) CADORE nato sull'aeroporto "Arturo Dall'Oro" nel 1957 ed operante con AB-G47 e Piper L21 Super Cub.

Nel '76 a seguito di ristrutturazione dell'ALE il RAL "Cadore" assume la denominazione di 44° Gruppo Squadroni ERI (nell'87 ALE) FENICE e passa alle dipendenze del 4° Reggimento ALE "ALTAIR".

Il Gruppo acquisisce gli AB206 (1979) e gli AB205 (1987) svolgendo una intensa attività a favore delle Brigate "JULIA" e "CADORE".Nel 1996 a seguito di successiva ristrutturazione cambia denominazione e dipendenza. Diventa 48° Gr. Elicotteri d'Attacco "PAVONE", la linea di volo si arricchisce degli A-129 e degli A-109, viene completata la costruzione del nuovo hangar (sicuramente il più bello e moderno tra tutti i reparti della Cavallerie dell'Aria), con relative infrastrutture. Passa alle dipendenze del 7° Reggimento Cavalleria dell'Aria "VEGA" con base a Casarsa della Delizia.



Nel 1998 il reparto e la maggior parte del personale, viene trasferito a Rimini. L'aeroporto militare di Belluno e le sue infrastrutture vengono chiuse.

 

 

 


The Base of 44° Group FENICE is situated at the south border of the mountainous region called "Dolomites" where average height ofthe mountains is about 11.000 ft.

It is positioned at about 10 min. flight time from Aviano AFB and 40 min. from Casarsa AAB.
This enviroment is a highly dangerous flight zone but it is one of the most instructive too. This is the enviroment where our pilots flew every day and where our story had been written.

The Group was initially constituted in 1957 with the name of RAL Cadore (an Italian acronym for Light Airplanes Group) inside the Alpine Corp. Initially constituted of a little group of pilots, they quickly became well known thanks to their hard work. Recognitions and searching for lost people were main job. They used the planes Piper L18 and L19, and later the Bell G47, G2 and G3.

With the introduction of the helicopters, the mountain works were enhanced. They began o perform rescue missions litterally experimenting those helicopters in a never tested enviroment.
In the following years, G47 were replaced with Bell Jet Ranger III and later on, the Group started its work using the Huey too. In this period the name of the Group changed and became 44° Fenice.
This is actually remembered as the hardest period but as the happiest too. Pilot performed a lot of flying hours and every kind of helicopter use were experimented.
When Civil Emergency MedicalService was only a far project, our pilots took off at least six time a day and with every weather condition in order to save lives. Sometimes they paied with their own life.
The Alpine Corp Troops, we were working for, quickly understood the importance of helicopters and they still use them to increase mobility where mobility is a must.
As you can easily understand, the concept of mobility in this environment is deeply different from the same concept applied on a flat terrain. Here, it means to fly with every whether condition and to transport every kind of military load. To find, rescue and sometimes feed teams during their exercises.
The excellence of this Group is one reason for has being chosen to be one of the two new attack helicopters squadron inside 7° Rgt Vega constituted in 1996. In 1998, political interests made the Group move to the old and inadequate AF base of Rimini condamning the multirole component to the virtual dead after that we arrived in Rimini with 13 perfect efficient flying helicopters.

Talking about the training activities we could say that they were based upon the classical range of training missions as instrumental flights, night flights, tactical missions, NVG and especially mountain flying training.

During the flying activities we had the chance to perform several Squadron Exchange with the 656° Squadron AAC based in Salisbury and later in Thirsk (North Yorkshire GB)
Other crews went to Turkey for exercises and in 1997 a Huey was invited to Ambrì Air Show in Switzerland.

Operative flights were mainly requested from the Alpine Brigade.
The operative range was constituted by several missions as border patrol, transport, medical evacuation, maintenance of mountain radio stations and safety, patrolling and casualty evacuation during firing exercises, recognition for our Geographical Military Institute which led us to land on the top of every mountain situated on the east, west and north border line. (Particularly, during the former Jugoslavia crisis in 1992, we were performing a 24 hours patrolling duty all along the east border)

Particular flight for civilians were performed too.
We are working about transport for mountains huts, SAR, fire fighting and even meteorological missions flown with the aim to study the snow and the dangerous mountain zones.

The 44° FENICE, though with the name of 48° Pavone, was involved in several humanitarian missions such as the UNTAG in Namibia, the ONUMOZ in Mozambique, Restore Hope in Somalia, UNIFIL in Lebanon, FMP in Albania in 1997 with the whole Group deployed in Brindisi and two NVG crews in Tirana, and SFOR mission in Bosnia deploying there the first NVG crews in Italy.