Thursday, November 28, 2019

Philippines receives AH-1S Cobra attack helicopters from Jordan, for commissioning soon

One of the AH-1S Cobra helicopters after unloading from transport aircraft. Photo c/o MaxDefense Philippines.


The Philippine Air Force (PAF) has received the two Bell AH-1S Cobra attack helicopters that were granted by the Kingdom of Jordan as goodwill and assistance in the fight against ISIS-inspired terrorists.

Philippine defense page MaxDefense Philippines reported on the arrival of the aircraft, which were brought in on 26 November 2019 by a chartered Antonov An-124 Ruslan civilian heavy airlifter from Jordan to Clark Air Base north of Manila.

This was later on confirmed by National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon in an interview by local news Inquirer.net, which also confirmed that the helicopters are expected to undergo assembly and flight tests before put to operational use by December 2019.

This would be the first time the Philippine military will field an attack helicopter, as previous and existing armed helicopters in service are based on general-purpose or scout helicopter platforms. 

It is expected that the newly acquired helicopters will also be used to train PAF pilots for much modern attack helicopter models, since it still has a pending acquisition for brand new attack helicopters. It was previously confirmed that the PAF selected the Turkish-made T129 ATAK attack helicopter although issues regarding engine and subsystems supply has hold back the order confirmation.

[1] MaxDefense Philippines
[2] Inquirer.net
[3] Philippine Defense Resource

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