Malaysia is on the verge of issuing letters of award to Leonardo and Turkey’s TAI for the procurement of maritime patrol aircraft and Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) respectively.
"For the procurement of two MPAs, the government has agreed to an offer by the Leonardo company while for the procurement of three MALE-UAS, the government has decided to sign a contract with the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI)," Defence Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said in a statement released on Sunday.
He added that the letters would be issued after all terms, clauses and specifications are agreed upon by the government and related companies, and that the country’s finance ministry had finalised both tenders with funding coming under its five-year plan instead of its defence budget.
While he did not identify the aircraft types selected, Leonardo is offering its ATR-72MP turboprop MPA, while TAI is offering its Anka MALE UAS to Malaysia.
The ATR-72MP, which it also being operated by Italy, is equipped with the Airborne Tactical Observation and Surveillance (ATOS) mission system, which manages the aircraft’s wide range of sensors and includes an advanced multi-mode surveillance radar featuring Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology, an Electro-Optical Sensor Turret (EOST) with colour and monochrome cameras.
TAI’s Anka is an armed MALE UAS boasting of a datalink range of 250 km and 30-hour endurance. Its service ceiling is 9,144 metres (30,000 ft) and has a maximum speed of 217 km/h (117 knots)
Maritime Domain Awareness has always been a significant challenge for Malaysia, with its military and coast guard has also had to deal with the issue of piracy along its coasts, and militancy and terrorism in the Sulu Sea lying between eastern Malaysia and the southern Philippines.
The country is made up of two separate landmasses with coastlines along the strategic Strait of Malacca and South China Sea and is also one of six claimants of ownership over the disputed Spratly group of islands.
The Royal Malaysian Air Force is in the process of taking delivery of three Indonesian-built CN-235 transport aircraft that are being converted to the maritime surveillance role funded under the US Maritime Security Initiative (MSI).
The service also operates three Beechcraft B200T King Air platforms in a maritime surveillance role, while the US government has also delivered six Insitu ScanEagle drones to the Royal Malaysian Navy, donated under MSI funding.
The RMAF has also previously used its Lockheed Martin C-130H Hercules transports and the CN-235 in the maritime surveillance role, but these lack specialised equipment and relied on visual observation by personnel on board.