SHAH ALAM: On May 2, Malaysian Defence wrote about a tender to provide maintenance, repairs, and spares for the Army’s Air Wing MD530G light scout attack helicopters. This is likely the MRO tender for six MD530G helicopters. Likely, as the public specification of the tender is very sparse.
On May 9, the Procurement Division of the Home Ministry published a tender for the maintenance, repairs, spares, and avionics and aero-mechanical support for the Army’s Air Wing AW109 light observation helicopters (LOH). The twenty-six days tender closes on June 10.
This tender is more interesting than the MD530G one as PUTD has been responsible for the maintenance of these helicopters – 11 were procured in 2003 – since they enter service around 2006. Leonardo Malaysia was contracted to conduct major work on the helicopters, on a when and if needed basis – through-out the years though.
PUTD also tendered out spares and parts for the helicopters which are then repaired at its main hangar at the Kluang camp in Johor. It is unclear why they suddenly decided to contract out the MRO service to outside service providers.
Unlike the MD530G tender, the advertisement document was provided with the public specifications which was
PEROLEHAN PERBEKALAN
ALAT GANTI, PEMBAIKAN,
SENGGARAAN DAN
PERKHIDMATAN BANTUAN
TEKNIKAL UNTUK
AEROMEKANIKAL DAN
AVIONIK PESAWAT AGUSTA
A109LOH PASUKAN UDARA
TENTERA DARAT (PUTD)
From the advertisement document, the indicative cost of the tender is RM111.2 million which I am assuming means that the contract duration for a period of at least three years. If there are nine helicopters in service this means that cost for each helicopter is around RM12 million and for three years the cost per helicopter is around RM4.1 million. The document also states that prospective bidder must have an MRO certificate to comply with the technical requirements.
PUTD AW109s are mostly stationed at its headquarters – Rejimen 881 PUTD at the Kluang camp in Johor and a detachment in Sandakan to support the Army operations in ESSCOM AOR. The LOH fleet were also the first Army equipped with weapons. Following the Lahad Datu incident in 2013, a handful of them were equipped with cabin mounted M134 Dillon Gatling guns. This despite the helicopters being wired for guns and rocket pods from the start.
— Malaysian Defence
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There yet another proof that the insanely stupid RM16.5 billion 28 helicopter lease is just a huge waste of limited resources.
From the MRO tender, the cost to maintain 1 AW109 for a year is about RM4.1 million only. No billions involved here.
Now we know the cost for AW109 as benchmark for small helicopters
We know the cost of EC725 as benchmark for large helicopters (RM378 million for 12 EC725 for 5 years)
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/bhicas-to-continue-maintenance-of-ec725s/
Extrapolated to 28 helicopters it is still way under the cost we need to pay annually for the lease.
But we have sly, cunning politicians to care for mates. And take care of their party supporters who bankrolled their election campaigns. And the leasing game is a show of gratitude for all services rendered.
And of course, they won’t give a rat’s arse about counter opinions and protests coming from concerned citizens who aren’t all idiots in the first place!
Not related comment, with the recent India Pakistan air duel (purpirtedly J10c with PL15 against Rafale armed with Meteor) Though still very speculative at this moment, one can make a wild assumption that Chinese military tech is on par to western europe, at a much lower cost(though this may not be true for long)
Why does it matter to Malaysia? It doesnt actually, as we wont ever buy chinese made air assets or upgraded frigates with missile due to our own border issue with them. However, if there is a chance, we may consider items such as tanks or sph, as it is way cheaper than even the koreans.At least it helps containing the budget deficit.
kamal
We already brought pontoon, bridges(bailey bridges and portable bridges) naval guns and munitions as well as other ancillary stuff from china
@kamal A
1) the trade deficit we have with both SK and PRC make their stuff more expensive in the eyes of our bean counter because we lack the yuan and won then what the exchange rates sticker price may suggest.
Meanwhile we have plenty of lira, pound, yen, euro and dollar. So under normal circumstances the bean counter has no real desire to buy from SK whatmore from PRC
2.our problem with PRC goes beyond just a normal border issues we have with ID or SG previously. The bigger issues is china desires to turn all of its neighbor into a satellite state
Thus Us Buying military things from china send out the wrong messages politically though as if we accepted Chinese Monroe doctrine and accept our finlanization fate.
Not a great thing to do when we trying to get not just more investment from US,EU or JP by selling ourselves as potential military partners to countries who are scared of Chinese abilities.
Basically save a few penny from a tank sticker price but lose out on the income/employment/foreign currency that things like data centers and silicone chip may provide but also lose out on deterrence as well as it’s more difficult to attack a small fry country if there’s a chance that other countries may provide support.
On the PL-15
Looking at the various component pictures, i can say that the electronics in the PL-15E, is much more advanced than the AMRAAM, with AESA seeker head and miniature PCB electronics. No “still using diodes, capacitors and such due to hardening and simplicity” BS. So rather than just 1/2-2/3rds of the airframe is propellant, PL-15E has 3/4 of the airframe filled with propellant, a reason for its long range. I believe new US missiles such as JATM will be better, but PL-15E is available for export now, and if export version is that much advanced, i wonder that kind of tech they have on PL-17 and PL-21.
As for Rafale, it somewhat vindicated my POV for us not getting Rafales and Typhoons for our future MRCA requirement. There is nothing significantly special with those 2 fighters when compared to what we have right now. With much more advanced 2nd gen GaN (3rd gen AESA overall) tech, the phantomstrike radar on the FA-50 is probably as good (if not better) than the GaA AESA radar on the rafale. We need our future MRCA to have something that we don’t have right now, which is low observability features.