(Photo credit: AFP)
On Saturday, the Philippine Air For (PAF) got two new fighter jets, FA-50, from South Korea, which marks what the military calls as “return to the supersonic jet age.”
The two new fighter jets that flew from South Korea and flown by South Korean pilots have already touched down in Clark Freeport, a former US Air Force base north of Manila. They were escorted by two S211 jets to Clark. As a tradition of welcome salute for these unarmed aircrafts, trucks sprayed water on them when they arrived.
It has been a decade since the Philippine Air force retired its 10 remaining F5 fighter jets, whose maintenance had grown costly.
According to Philippine National Defense spokesman Peter Paul Galvez, these aircrafts may be small but they can help in securing our airspace from intrusion.
The FA-50 has night vision imaging, which can be used for night or day missions. The jet can be installed with short-range missile-to-missile or air-to-ground missiles, among other combat features.
These two jets are the first to arrive from a total of 12 currently acquired by PAF through 2017. This is a $420 million acquisition and is part of the military’s five-year $1.8 billion upgrade program.
The fighter jets that arrived are still unarmed and armaments will be purchased later.
How can these new fighter jets help our local air force?
What else should they do to upgrade the Philippine Air Force?
Armaments wise…i wonder what will they purchase for these fighters…..
The FA-50 is a trainer/ light attack craft, it sure is a gigantic one up from the rusty, ‘Cold War’ era F5’s. Eventhough they only have light armamanets this is a step in the right direction. Glad to see taxpayer money being used for the country.