| Description : In 1910, the first aircraft were put into service and combined
into an independent engineer battalion. In 1915, the Corpo Aeronautico Militare (Military Aviation Corps) was founded.
Together with the naval air corps established in 1913, it took part in the First World War, also in France, the Balkans and
North Africa. The air forces of the Army and Navy gave rise to the Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) of Italy in 1923.
The wear and tear of the colonial wars fought in North and East Africa since 1922 and the participation in the Spanish
Civil War led to the air force losing touch with the technical and operational development of the air forces of other great
powers at the end of the 1930s. Italy's entry into the Second World War in 1940 forced the Regia Aeronautica into a
technically often unequal struggle. With the formal end of the monarchy in 1946, it changed its name to Aeronautica
Militare (Italian Air Force) and incorporated itself as a partner in NATO, which was founded in 1949. The coin motif is the
logo of the centenary of the Air Force. The two zeros of the number "100" are crossed by an ascending line, at the
beginning of which a single‐engine historical propeller aircraft can be seen at the bottom left and at the end of
which a modern fighter jet can be seen at the top right. A semi‐circular line connects the wings of both aircraft on
the right with the dates "2023" and "1923" below each other. The issue occasion "AERONAUTICA MILITARE" (Italian Air Force)
is at the bottom, the ligature "RI" (Repubblica Italiana, Italian Republic) is shown at the top as the country abbreviation.
On the left is the "R" the mint mark of the Italian mint Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato in Rome and on the
right the initials "VdS" of the mint designer Valerio de Seta. |
