Italy Buys 2 More Modified Grumman Spy Planes From Israel For $550-M

Publicly available documents expose what Israel Aerospace Industries sought to hide-- Italy has purchased two more early warning, intel gathering planes, and services for $550 million—Oded Yaron reported for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Photo Insert: The Italian Defense Ministry announced in 2021 that it intended to buy two new CAEW espionage planes from ELTA.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has signed contracts with Italy worth about $550 million for the sale of two more early warning spy planes as well as support and ground logistics services for the Italian air force.

The deals, reflected in publicly available documents from the Italian Defense Ministry and the country’s parliament, bring to four the number of special mission aircraft that IAI will have supplied to the Italians.

The independent Arab news outlet Al Mayadeen also reported that IAI announced in July 2022 that it had been given a contract worth more than $200 million to supply special purpose aircraft to a European NATO member state.

The ELTA subsidiary of IAI builds a variety of special mission aircraft, many of which are based on executive jets that have had military systems added to them.

These include SIGINT aircraft for electronic and communication intelligence gathering and electronic warfare - to jam enemy radar and communications systems - as well as CAEW aircraft which provide airborne early warning and control as well as electronic intelligence capabilities.

They also include maritime patrol aircraft to track ships and submarines. The Italian Defense Ministry announced in 2021 that it intended to buy two new CAEW espionage planes from ELTA.

The plane is based on a modified Gulfstream G550 commercial aircraft that is used for air control and early warning missions and is comparable to the Israeli Air Force's Nachshon Eitam aircraft.

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