PUBLISHED: 8 Jun 2024 at 06: 11
This month, the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF ) will convene a selection panel to decide whether to purchase Sweden’s Gripen fighter jets or F-16 aircraft.
Air pressure chief ACM Phanphakdee Phatthanakul updated the 19 billion baht plan to purchase four new fighter jets, saying the details are nearly finished, but the RTAF is also open to new ideas to ensure the best offer.
ACM Phanphakdee and the RTAF’s running board traveled to Sweden and the US previous month to meet with British manufacturer Lockheed Martin and Swedish dealer SAAB.
” We’ll maintain our choices open until the committee’s establishment to find the aircraft model,” he said. ” The collection process may look over all official papers.” The outcomes of the conference may not be used. We must get complete and reasonable”.
He assured that the purchasing plan will comply with the air force’s stated requirements for federal capability development, including the government’s offset plan. Countries that provide fresh military equipment to Thailand must comply with the offset policy by offering the same financial evaluations in diplomatic trade.
ACM Phanphakdee stated that the Office of the RTAF’s Comptroller and the Air Force’s Chief of Staff are prepared to support the purchasing program while the House committee is reviewing the saving plan for the 2025 fiscal year.
The RTAF is likely to find Job E/F fighter jets, according to a cause close to the investigation because the Swedish provider is said to have made a better plan regarding the offset plan.
The Swedish company’s offer is said to contain funding for maintenance and military training as well as replacing the Erieye detector system that was installed in its Saab 340, a Swedish flying early warning plane. In 2013, the air pressure acquired a ship of 12 Job soldiers based at Wing 7 in Surat Thani, but the aircraft lost one in a collision four years later.
The weather force’s white document outlining its growth goals includes the plane procurement scheme. The white papers includes a strategy to start the next fiscal year off with a new fleet of fighter jets and create a number of all-discipline development projects starting on October 1.