Indonesian Aerospace (IaE) plans to develop an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) variant of the CN-235 turboprop and hopes to offer the aircraft to countries in the region.
The state-owned company's president, Budi Wuraskito, told the official Antara news agency that IaE had sent about 40 engineers to Turkey to learn how to manufacture ASW aircraft.
"We already have the technology for the production of such aircraft," he says, while not revealing where it has been acquired from. "They [the engineers] now have the experience to assemble and modify aircraft of that type."
Turkish Aerospace Industries in late 2008 performed the first flight of a CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft equipped with a Thales Amascos mission system. The company is preparing six of the aircraft for ASW and anti-surface warfare duties with the Turkish navy under Ankara's Meltem 2 project.
IaE manufactures the CN-235 under licence from Airbus Military, and an ASW variant could attract interest from neighbouring countries like Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand, as well as some Middle Eastern countries.
The company has developed civilian and other military variants of the CN-235, and a military transport version is in service with countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea.
It has also developed a maritime patrol variant that is in service with the Indonesian navy, and has also attracted interest from South Korea.
Indonesia meanwhile plans to increase its defence budget by 20% in 2010 to make up for years of underfunding, says newly elected president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former army general.
"We will significantly increase our defence budget from 33.6 trillion rupiah ($3.3 billion) in 2009 to 40.6 trillion," Antara quotes him as saying. The aim is to increase the budget every year until it reaches 120 trillion rupiah, he adds.
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© PA photosThe remains of the Indonesian military C-130 which crashed in May |
There have been calls for additional funding for the military after a series of fatal crashes involving Indonesian military aircraft over the last few months. In May, an air force Lockheed Martin C-130H crashed, killing 99 people. Another 24 died when an air force Fokker F27 crashed in April, and there have also been several recent fatal accidents involving military helicopters.
Source: Flight International
