SHAH ALAM: Thai T-50THs in Kuantan. It appears that Korean Aerospace are working hard to get the T-50 light jet trainer into the RMAF. Last year they took part in LIMA series exhibition in Langkawi. The Black Eagles then conducted a display over Kuala Lumpur, over the skies of KLCC.
Today (Jan. 10, 2018) two T-50TH of the Royal Thai Air Force made a stop-over at Kuantan airport, the last leg of their ferry flight from South Korea to Thailand. The two aircraft had earlier made stop-overs at Clark airbase in the Philippines and Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
One of the two RTAF T-50 at Kuantan airbase today. via @KaptRahmat
The jets were expected to arrive at Takhli Air Base in central Thailand on January 11, concluding their 4,137-mile (6,658km) ferry flight. The two T-50TH are from the four Golden Eagles ordered by Thailand in 2015. Last year, the Thai government ordered eight more T-50s reportedly for $258 million.
According to specifications released earlier by KAI, the T-50TH will be fully combat capable, being fitted with fire control radar — expected to be the Elbit EL/M-2032 — MIL-STD-1760 databus and will have provision for the Link 16 data link.
Yes, RMAF had indicated its interest in the T-50 for the lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT) role currently undertaken by the MB-339CM. It is an open secret that the CMs are no longer optimum platforms for the demanding task of producing fighter pilots for the RMAF.
There was confusion of the timelines over RMAF plans to get a LIFT replacement when the matter was made public at a conference in Germany, last year. My colleague from Aviation Week reported that the LIFT cum LCA replacement would start around 2025 while Janes on the other hand says it will be around 2022.
RMAF has not made public its stand on the matter but following the announcement of the 2018 budget, the service had stated that the Hawk upgrade, which been planned for sometime now, would start soon. With the upgrades the RMAF Hawk fleet are expected to be in service until 2030.
Personally I have no problem with RMAF finding a replacement for the CM within the next five years. However if they choose the KAI T-50 to replace the CMs, it will mean that RMAF will operate with four fast jets just like its current ORBAT.
It will be cheaper, to say the least, if it sought to consolidate its LIFT program to the Hawk Mk108s by acquiring more examples from Oman which has four similar Hawks. These Hawks will be replaced with newer Hawks. This will increase the twin seat Hawk to nine or ten aircraft allowing for the retirement of the CMs.
* reports from Thailand suggests both aircraft will have to stay longer at Kuantan as they suffered unspecified technical faults while flying through severe weather in South China Sea.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (24)
There can only be one thing
- continue with hawk upgrades plus get more used hawks. Our hawk cockpits need upgrading as it is even more older tech than the mb-339cm. Then there is the various technical issues with hawk models before the hawk 127.
Or
- cancel the hawk upgrade, sell them off and replace both hawk and mb-339cm with TA/FA-50
Im for the 2nd option.
the best way is to replace hawk and mb-339cm with Golden Eagles. now we get to replace 2 platform with 1 platform. high cost to obtain(persuade the govt of course) but in long run it is profitable.
although it seem highly unlikely. hopefully TUDM get what they want.
Any other choice of LIFT other than T-50?
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Many others but the T-50 is most favoured one at the moment. And if selected by the USAF will be the most used out there, which will in turn reduce support cost all around
Dont think any budget was allocated for new LIFT in the next 5 years but it made sense to recapitalise the training/conversion assets now. I am with Marhalim on this, 2nd hand hawks may be a less costly option plus no need to introduce additional logistical foot print
EL-M radar? Lol
The best we could get is an upgraded APG-67 (which is basically just an upgraded APG-66 that is used in hawk)
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If we buy them we could always fit it with the Raytheon or Northrop Grumman AESA radar if we want to or the APG 67. KAI cannot put non American radar apart from the Elta one
Remember we have 2 things that we need to recapitalize. MRCA and LCA/LIFT.
If we delay both, then in 10-15 years time we will be in the same situation needing replacements for both at the same time.
Now we have the option of getting one 1st and delaying the other. I am in favour of getting LCA/LIFT 1st (which is the cheaper of the 2) and delaying MRCA by getting additional used hornets
Getting LCA/LIFT in the form of TA/FA-50 would replace our current 2 types with 1, have same engine logistics with our hornets, and a supersonic capability to shoulder the MiGs Kuantan QRA tasks, which will enable us to finally retire the MiGs too. The radar equipped hawks and mb-339s could be sold off, now with private contractors in the west lately buying lots of used fighters for expected large government contracts. Now is the best situation to sell them off (because of the demand from those contractors), if we keep them now, in 15 years time they would only be good as scrap.
If we go for MRCA 1st and LCA/LIFT later, well 1stly right now we dont have the usd3-4 billion for 1 squadron of MRCAs. 40 LCA/LIFT for 1 LIFT and 2 operational squadron would cost around usd1.3 billion only. 2ndly if we buy typhoons or rafales, we will have to stick with that for quite some time in the future while our neighbours are getting stealth fighters in 5-10 years time. Delaying MRCA will enable us to have the option of stealth fighters FC-31, KF-X, TF-X, F-35. Delaying LCA/LIFT, there will still be the same option in 15 years time TA/FA-50, M-349, Yak-130, L-15B, so no advantage of delaying to get better planes there. 3rdly it will add to the logistical problem of maintaining a rojak fleet of hawks, hornets, mkms and mrcas. If we buy TA/FA-50 for LCA/LIFT now our fleet type will reduce to 3, with only 2 types of engines.
Any news about P-3 Orion from Japan?
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None
I'm sure TUDM has done the budget projection to pinpoint exactly when to replace its Hawks.
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Yes, all the services do but their planning are always hampered when money is not available or when national interest comes into play. As one former air force chief told me a long time ago the best they can do put their wants into a basket and hope for the best
In every RMK, we could assume there will be around 1.5 to 2 billion USD available for new equipment (capex) for each service. From the Navy's 15 to 5 plan we can see that the navy plans around this, planning their every RMK buy to around usd 2 billion in value.
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/15-to-5-and-lms/
So RMK11, for now the items we can assume to be paid for would be
- part of the A400M payment (600 mil ?)
- MPA aircraft (600 mil)
I don't know if any other big ticket items could be fitted in the RMK11 budget. What do we know that the A400M program severely derailed any prior plans of TUDMs leadership but that is what they need to plan around, not making requests that is over the available budget. If the Legacy Hornet and LCA/LIFT program is a go, I forsee the remaining RMK11 budget would be for the MPA and legacy Hornets, while the LCA/LIFT buy would be announced in RMK11 but paid for and received only in RMK12.
Any MRCA plans would realistically be paid for in RMK13 and RMK14, and AEW&C (affordable something with ERIEYE ER) hopefully could be included in RMK12 along with with the LCA/LIFT.
So today Hishamuddin visited subang AFB. There he said that from now on there would be no forced buy from the government, only requests coming from the air force itself would be bought. Need to take that with a grain of salt though...