Alenia Aeronautica ITV

Background

The Alenia ITV was developed by Alenia Aeronautica as a half-scale demonstrator to integrate and test technologies for a future full-scale UCAV. A non-flying ground-test prototype was unveiled in the spring of 2003, with a flight prototype planned to follow. The vehicle features a high-mounted wing with 35 degrees of sweep, a vee tail, and a Microturbo TRI60-5 turbojet mounted on the back behind the wing. It has retractable tricycle landing gear and is constructed primarily of metal.

The ITV is explicitly a risk-reduction vehicle; a production UCAV from Alenia Aeronautica would be at least twice as large, use a tailless delta configuration, and be made mostly of composite materials. That future design would include a modular payload bay for smart weapons, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), or day-night electro-optical sensors. Alenia Spazio, a sister organization within the Finnmeccia Group, was to provide a satellite data link. Meteor, also part of the Finnmeccia Group, likely collaborated with Alenia Aeronautica on UAV design.