29
Apr
Today we received information from the FAA that the Italian F-104S/ASA-M Starfighter MM6940 has been officially registered "N995SF".
This particular aircraft flew operational within the Italian Air Force as "9-50" till it was withdrawn from use at Cervia Air Base on October 26th, 2004. It had flown a total of 3684 hours. It stayed at Cervia and was selected as display aircraft. On one side the aircraft received code "5-31" to represent an aircraft operating in the past by 23 Gruppo at Cervia. Then in 2008 a team refurbished the aircraft completely an gave it an old AMI camouflage scheme with white codes "5-30" (sadly with not a fully realistic font and size). The aicraft kept being used as display aircraft at the airbase. On June 4th, 2010, the aircraft was inspected by the Starfighters Inc team from Florida as a possible candidate for a future add-on S aircraft to their fleet. For a while there was a silence and we had the feeling that the deal might have been cancelled until today. It is unknown if the aircraft is still at Cervia or already in the USA at this moment. Time will tell!!
But the good news is that another Starfighter is prepared for flying again!!
(Picture taken at Cervia May 27th, 2010 : thanks to Paolo Maglio).
1 Comment