NEW DASSAULT AVIATION RAFALE FOR INDONESIA!
By Arnaud - November 18, 2022
It took him less than a year to decide to order new French planes. The Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Udara has announced that it has a provision of 3.9 billion US dollars to equip itself with new equipment including additional combat aircraft. And part of this sum will be destined for the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation and its star fighter, the Rafale F4. Knowing that at the beginning of the year this Indonesian air force has already committed for forty-two of these state-of-the-art aircraft.
Three billion nine hundred million US dollars is a huge sum. It was on the sidelines of the G20 summit that it was organizing that Indonesia made this revelation, hastening to speak above all of the Dassault Aviation Rafale F4. A bit as if the French combat aircraft had become an outward sign of success for an air force and for its country. However, it is currently unknown whether twelve or eighteen standard F4 aircraft will be ordered. The customer remains evasive, the supplier as usual completely silent. With this provision of nearly four billion US dollars, Indonesia also confirms to buy back the Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000-5EDA/-5DDA currently in Qatar. We had already told you about his intention in this regard. More than ever, a Djakarta Saint-Cloud axis seems to be taking shape.
Twelve to eighteen new Rafale F4s and a dozen second-hand Mirage 2000-5s, even with the appropriate training and services, this will never represent 3.9 billion US dollars. In fact the Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Udara is considering another military aircraft program that has nothing to do with fighters. She remains rather nebulous on the matter.
And to have a beginning of answer it is necessary to be interested in the local media, specialized in defense and aeronautics in economic affairs. And there clearly the question becomes less obscure: Indonesia wants its own AWACS in order to better protect its airspace from the risks of incursion of Chinese origin. And there is no question of calling on Dassault Aviation since the French aircraft manufacturer has nothing like it in store.
Potential competitors can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Embraer E-99, Gulfstream G550CAEW, Northrop-Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, and Saab GlobalEye. It remains to be seen whether this Asian state will have the means to achieve its ambitions because these four aircraft are ultramodern aircraft that are perfectly adapted but quite expensive.
Until then it was thought that Indonesia only wanted to replace its Sukhoi Su-27SKM Flanker and Su-30MK2 Flanker-C with Rafale F4s. It now seems certain that the ten General Dynamics F-16AM/BM Fighting Falcons in its arsenal are also in the crosshairs of the generals of the TNI-AU. What then of the twenty or so British Aerospace Hawk Mk 209 light fighters? The future will undoubtedly tell us.
It is interesting that Indonesia made this revelation about its provision of almost four billion euros even though the first of its soldiers are in France to be trained on Rafale F4. It could be many things, but absolutely not a coincidence!
Le 18 novembre 2022, par Arnaud. Il lui aura fallu moins d'un an pour se décider à commander de nouveaux avions français. La Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Udara a annoncé disposer Actualités
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