Four Eurofighter Typhoon jets, two belonging to the 4° Stormo (Wing), based at Grosseto Air Base, and two belonging to the 36° Stormo, from Gioia del Colle, performed a flyover at the first-ever Formula 1 race hosted by the Ferrari-owned track, at Mugello, near Florence, in central Italy.
While flyovers in Italy are usually carried out by the Frecce Tricolori display team, four F-2000s flew over the starting grid of the Grand Prix to celebrate the 1000th Formula 1 race of the Ferrari racing team.
The four jets literally rocked the starting grid with a formation pass, right after the national anthem, followed by a couple of cool, noisy low passes in pairs.
It’s also worthy of remark that, in order to take part in the flyover at Mugello at 14.55LT, two F-2000s flew from Gioia del Colle, in southeastern Italy, to Grosseto, in the central part of the country, in the morning on Sunday, Sept. 13: during the ferry flight, the two aircraft were “diverted” to intercept and perform a VID (Visual Identification) on an ultralight aircraft that had lost radio contact with the civilian Air Traffic Control (a typical “COMLOSS” mission – from Communication Loss).
The two Typhoons continued their flight to Grosseto after the “zombie” (as the intercepted aircraft is dubbed in the fighter pilot “lingo”) was identified and re-established the radio contact with the ATC agencies.
