Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the 120 Air Training Wing in Kalamata, southwest Peloponnese, on Thursday.
The premier was given a tour of the base and was briefed on the advantages of high-resolution flight simulators and flight path tracking systems, in the context of the base’s theoretical and practical training of Hellenic Air Force officers in Instrument Flight Rules (IFR).
Mitsotakis also spoke with Israeli experts who are supporting Greek instructors in view of upgrading the training wing’s educational standards.
The Kalamata base is the International Flight Training Center, which was created on the basis of a Greece-Israel agreement. The agreement, worth nearly 1.37 billion euros, was signed between the two countries’ defence ministries in April 2021 (including Israeli company Elbit Systems) and the Center was inaugurated in October 2022. The joint project includes procurement and operation of new training planes M-346, among other provisions.
Defence leaders and trainers also briefed the PM on the prospect of turning the Air Training Wing into a training base for flight officers from abroad.
One of the most important decisions made by the Greek government in the previous four years “was to invest substantially in the upgrading of aviation training in cooperation with one of the most serious companies in Israel, so that we can offer our young aviators the opportunity to train in one of the most state-of-the-art, if not the most state-of-the-art, training aircraft available in the global aviation industry today,” PM Mitsotakis noted, in reference to the M-346 light combat plane manufactured by Leonardo.
Finally, the prime minister was also briefed on the fact that delivery of the first two M-346s has already been made to the Hellenic Air Force and they are being used at the 120 Air Training Wing. These planes are “ideal for preparing young flying officers, who will later be handling 4th and 5th generation fighter jets,” noted Mitsotakis.
