Two of six Turkish helicopters for PAF arrive
Two of the six Turkish helicopters acquired for the Philippine Air Force arrived on Wednesday morning.
Col. Maynard Mariano, Philippine Air Force spokesman, said the two T-129 ATAK helicopters onboard the A400M from Turkey arrived at Clark Air Base in Mabalacat City, Pampanga past midnight Wednesday.
"The two T-129 together with its initial logistics support were loaded onboard two A400M of the Turkish Air Force. A total of six units of the T129 aircraft were acquired by the PAF from Turkish Aerospace Industries in line with the AFP Modernization Plan - Horizon 2," he said.
He said six T-129 ATAK helicopters, including the logistics support and training of pilots and crew in Turkey have a total contract price of P13, 727, 248, 240.
Mariano said the helicopters will still have to be inspected and flight testing before it will be formally accepted by the Philippine Air Force.
"It will undergo inspection, it will undergo acceptance and it will undergo test flights before the acceptance ceremony can be done and it will also go through a lot of orientation in the country together with the pilots and the crew in the country," he said.
Mariano did not give details on when the four other T-129 ATAK helicopters will arrive but he said the first two choppers are expected to be commissioned after one or two months.
"We expect this to be in commission for maybe a month or two at the most depending on the pace of the acceptance test flights," he said.
Mariano said T-129 ATAK helicopters "is a very modern aircraft" that is "at par with attack helicopters of other countries".
"It will help a lot in our surface strike capabilities, it will help in our campaign in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. This is something that we've been waiting for. Remember we have the two AH-1s Cobra and it will complement our AH-1s Cobra to support the AFP," he said.
Mariano said the 15th Strike Wing of the Philippine Air Force will operate the T-129 helicopters and will be utilized for close air support to ground troops and armed surveillance and reconnaissance.
"The T-129 is a dedicated attack helicopter much like the AH-1S Cobra; this new system will complement the several surface strike systems of the Air Force and will be another game changer in support to the numerous missions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines," he said.
Mariano said aside from AH-1s Cobra and the T-129 ATAK Turkish helicopters, other attack helicopters in the inventory of the Philippine Air Force include AgustaWestland AW109 and MG520. Robina Asido/DMS
