SHAH ALAM: Hawk Silver Jubilee. The 25th anniversary of the RMAF Hawk is scheduled to be held on March 2, 2019. The celebration, likely to be held at the Butterworth airbase, will be the third for RMAF’s 90s fast jets after the ones for the Fulcrum and the Hornet.
It appears that the Hawk one will be the mother of celebrations – the fleet is the biggest and they will have the most personnel, current and former – compared to the others celebrated in the past. I am not purview of the events lined up for the jubilee but the organisers are trying to get as many Hawk drivers and maintainers for the gig.
For those who had served with the Hawks in the past please get in touch with the organisers as soon as possible. They can be contacted at their Facebook page.
Hawk M40-04 from 15 Skn at the Firepower Exercise in Gemas on May 22, 2017.
It is likely that there will be several Hawks painted in the jubilee colours for the celebration. Do not fret if you missed the unveiling as it is very likely that these Hawks will also be at LIMA 19 in late March, just three weeks after the jubilee.
Two Royal Malaysian Air Force BAE Hawk and an F-22 Raptor from Hawaii National Guard 199th Fighter Squadron and U.S. Air Forces 19th FS taxis during Cope Taufan 2014, P.U. Butterworth, Malaysia June 11, 2014. USAF picture
Elephant In The Room
Anyhow being it is the silver jubilee of the Hawk, inevitably we will have talk about the future of the fleet in RMAF. There has been a lot of talk about its replacement – the LCA – including its supposed candidates even though the much talk about Hawk upgrades remained unfunded. RMAF has also come with the Cap 55 plan but without a firm timeline and more importantly funding it must be seen as just another wish list.
BAE Systems Hawk 208 M40-34.
Recently, we were told that the Defence Ministry is coming up with a white paper for the strategic direction of the military. According to the ministry a sanitised version of the document will be made public in September after it is tabled in Parliament two months earlier.
Hawk Mk 108 M40-08 doing touch and goes at Labuan airport in November, 2017
Will the document be any different from the ones published in the last fourty years? And more importantly will there be money to implement the recommendations? If it says that it will take three decades to replace 30-year old stuff, it will not.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (21)
I agree with you on the firm timeline. As i have said before, a plan without an obvious timeline is no different to a kopitiam sembang.
This is an example of a clear timeline
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/singapore-to-buy-f-35s/#comment-347590
Another thing that needs to be reminded is to plan within the available budget. No use to plan buying a ferrari when your budget obviously only can afford a secondhand myvi.
My previous article in march 2018 on tudm puts the tentative budget at USD2 billion per Rancangan Malaysia, and now i found out even that is over what the government can allocate to tudm. I have written a new one with lower budget, but is it the right time now to publish it?
Anyway happy 25th anniversary hawk, they have really done their part in securing malaysias peace. Now is the time to replace them with something more capable, in reasonable quantities.
Reply
Do your post and firm timeline could only be done if there's firm funding
Jane\'s is reporting that a spokesperson for KAI has reported that Malaysia has issued a RFI for the FA-50 on 05JAN2019.
https://www.janes.com/article/86017/malaysia-issues-rfi-for-kai-s-fa-50-light-fighter
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RFI were also issues 8n 2007 for MRCA...
The RFI FA-50 is just another bait so they come to LIMA. Looks like there are already 2 candidates to be fooled.
Just invite SG F-16 and F-15, RTAF grippen and TNI TA-50 to the LIMA.
If we want to move on to the LCA/FLIT (I hate it when they dont use the normal shortform LIFT, but that is what TUDM uses in CAP55 document), there should not be any further investment in hawks except the usual spendings to keep them in operational condition.
Those new LCA/FLIT sould be a replacement for the hawks and also the MB339s, while also taking over peacetime QRA tasks done previously by the MiG-29s. Very wide spectrum from training to interception yes, but this has to be done in order to reduce the operational costs, simplify manpower requirements and to achieve an overall increase in operational capability.
@romeo,
Imho i seriously doubt RSAF will participate this time round, due to the ongoing ILS and maritime border issue. I hope im wrong. They had cancel the plan joint meetings of trade delegates earlier with johor.
Read about the CAATSA, thoygh big countries like China and Saudi can just ignore it, not us malaysian though..haiya if that is the case close book already la. T50 aws lead in trainer, Super Hornet as MRCA
If funding is tight for the planes, then we shouldn't hope to achieve parity with the region's next gen planes. Instead we should try to get ground based systems that can detect and counter their threats. Air superiority won't be achieved if they kept getting shot down.
@ alpha zulu
RSAF already confirmed the Airbus A330 MRTT tanker for LIMA 2019. So they will be there.
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Apart from the MRTT, RSAF is sending only an F-15
Kudos to RSAF, that's what we need, unity and support in asean.
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No RSN though
@ joe
Fighters are not just for air superiority alone.
Ground based systems cannot intercept and escort civilian jet airliners
Ground based systems cannot escort our transporters
Ground based systems cannot give close air support to our soldiers
Ground based systems cannot provide air cover to our navy ships.
Ground based systems cannot destroy enemy ships
Ground based systems cannot strike enemy bases and infrastructure.