Press & Media

Varese, 14 june 2011 

Finmeccanica presents the book M-346. 

At Villa Recalcati, headquarters of the Varese provincial authority, Finmeccanica today presented the book M-346. Biography of an Aircraft by Marco Sotgiu, published by UTET. This is the sixth volume in Finmeccanica’s collection on the history of the events, companies and, most importantly, individuals that have helped turn Finmeccanica into a major industrial player.

The book traces the exciting story of the M-346, the new-generation advanced trainer aircraft designed and built by Alenia Aermacchi, part of Finmeccanica's aeronautics division, led by Alenia Aeronautica. An adventurous story that started with the partnership between Italian and Russian companies in the early 1990s and is now one of the jewels in the crown of the Finmeccanica group. The M-346 is the most advanced trainer aircraft currently available on the market and the only one in the world in its category designed to train pilots for the latest-generation high-performance military aircraft. The M-346 has already been bought by the Italian Air Force and the Singapore Air Force (one of the most demanding in the world) and has been well-received by many other air forces in the world. Key figures in the story of the M-346 (from its Italo-Russian origins) are managers and engineers such as Giorgio Brazzelli, who steered Aermacchi along the route to integration into Finmeccanica thanks to his perceptiveness with regard to the design of the M-346, as well as Massimo Lucchesini and the entire Integrated Project Team for the aircraft.

The book, which recounts the story of the aircraft’s development, is accompanied by a book of photographs on the M-346, published by Pendragon Edizioni and signed by, among others, Katsuhiko Tokunaga, the internationally renowned Japanese military aviation photographer.

Among those present at the book launch were Minister Maroni, the Chairman of Finmeccanica, Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, the Chief Executive Officer of Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Orsi, the Chairman of AgustaWestland, former CEO and later Chairman of Alenia Aermacchi, Giorgio Brazzelli, the Chief Executive Officer of Alenia Aeronautica and Head of Finmeccanica's aeronautics division, Giuseppe Giordo, former Under Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Development, Giovanni Zanetti, and the book's author, Marco Sotgiu.