“The engineer does not live, he works”. If there is an ironic saying that does not apply to Alessandro Barletta, it is this one. Because when Alessandro, Head of Engineering for GCAP, reviews his 20 years at Leonardo, his voice betrays a strong emotion. An involvement that is undoubtedly an expression of vitality and great passion without which he would not have come to lead, today, the technical-engineering sector of the most futuristic and challenging programme involving Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan to develop a new-generation aircraft system by 2035.
Born in Liguria, Alessandro has been precocious in everything: at the age of 17 he enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin; at 23 he met his wife Alice, and three years later their daughter, Viola, was born; as soon as he graduated, in 2005, he began an internship at a company producing ball bearings; a few months later he was hired by the former Alenia Aeronautica. “They asked me if I wanted to do research or design. I followed the passion I had since childhood: inventing,” says Alessandro. That's how it went for the next 20 years, except for a brief six-month interlude between 2014 and 2015, during the One Company transition, which led him to the position of Project Management Office, reporting to the then CEO of Alenia.
Looking back, Alessandro talks about the years he spent working on the vast majority of military programmes participated in or managed by Leonardo: from the Tornado to the Eurofighter Typhoon, from the C-27J to the P-27A. Years in which he invented and patented a system to test the C-27J's laser warner and an encryption-based SW licensing system for the Mission Data Library Generator. “It was a path of vertical growth, made possible thanks to effective and fruitful coaching and mentoring,” he recounts. Then, from 2016, the leap with participation – always with roles of responsibility – in international programmes such as Eurofighter and GCAP, for which he has taken on engineering and technical leadership since February 2024. “GCAP involves multifunctional and multidisciplinary groups in our company: aircraft, cyber, electronics and aerostructures. This is the beauty of working as a team. All from an integrated systems perspective. Given the complexity of the programme,” he notes, “we are among the largest users of high-performance computing (HPC) assets, such as the davinci-1 supercomputer, and we base our developments on the adoption of widespread digital engineering practices, a real key enabler of collaboration, especially in the international arena. Alessandro believes that putting the skills he has acquired along the way at the service of the company and his colleagues is the best way to repay the investment made in him, “because here at Leonardo,” he emphasises, “I have been given many opportunities.” Therefore, to the girls and boys studying STEM disciplines and entering the world of work,” he points out, “This is a universe that offers an infinite number of opportunities for professional and, above all, personal growth. Both because you work alongside colleagues with enormous experience, from whom you can learn important soft skills, and because of the immense portfolio of products offered by Leonardo: here everyone can find a field in which they feel fulfilled.”
Dialogue, especially on an international level, is always stimulating. This is something that Alessandro knows well, as he has the opportunity to travel extensively between the UK and Japan as part of GCAP. He feels particularly attached to the Japanese culture. From the age of five until the age of 21 he practised judo at a competitive level (“I have a brown belt”) and ju-jutsu, as well as starting to study Japanese: “I speak it very little, but a few polite phrases have helped me to break the ice in many GCAP meetings, also thanks to the universal language of physics, technology and mathematics.” The greatest satisfaction? “Seeing this next-generation fighter aircraft fly in ten years.” Otsukaresama (“good luck with your work”), Alessandro.