Videos: Italy’s Aircraft Carrier Cavour Leaves Port After Upgrades to Carry F-35s

The Italian Navy flagship, the aircraft carrier Cavour, left drydock on Wednesday. The warship has received 10 months of modernization upgrades to operate the F-35B stealth aircraft, and will now embark on integration tests.

The Cavour left the Maritime Military Arsenal in Italy’s southern city of Taranto on Wednesday morning after months of upgrades designed to ready the warship for operating the F-35B Lightning II stealth aircraft.

The Cavour entered drydock in July 2019 and left it in November, but remained in the Mare Piccolo basin while the final work was done. Naval News reported the upgrades included a reinforced flight deck to handle the stress of direct thrust from the engines of the F-35B, which is capable of temporarily pointing its thrusters downward in order to take off and land vertically.

According to The Aviationist, the Cavour was the largest ship to enter the arsenal’s drydock since World War II, when Italy’s sizable navy fielded several large battleships.

Italy’s navy has two aircraft carriers: the larger Cavour, named for the Count of Cavour, and a smaller carrier named after Giuseppe Garibaldi – the two 19th century statesmen credited with unifying Italy into a single country.

Sourse: sputniknews.com