Aero Vodochody has renamed its L-39NG the L-39 Skyfox as it prepares to step up deliveries of the updated single-engined jet trainer to initial customers Vietnam, Hungary and local operator LOM Praha.
However, chief executive Viktor Sotona believes the 28 aircraft commitments the Czech airframer has notched up so far are only the start and is confident of expanding the orderbook both among operators of legacy L-39 Albatros types – particularly in Africa – as well as NATO countries.
Aero Vodochody expects to produce 12 examples annually of the Williams International FJ44-4M-powered subsonic jet this year and next. Sotona, who took over as chief executive in October 2021, says that a rate of at least one aircraft per month is “the speed we were aiming for” when the programme was launched in 2014 and is enough “for me not to be worried about the future of the company”.
Aero Vodochody announced the new monicker at Prague’s Future Forces Forum on 16 October. The ceremony at the defence expo was attended by Czech President Petr Pavel, a retired army general and former chief of the general staff of the Czech armed forces who has been the incumbent in Prague Castle since March last year.
“It was very important to have the president at the event,” says Sotona, noting that Pavel was familiar with Aero Vodochody’s products including the L-159 advanced jet trainer, still in service with the Czech air force, and the L-39 Albatros, the 1960s-era predecessor to the Skyfox, which sold in its hundreds to nations allied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Aero Vodochody handed over its first Skyfox to the Vietnam air force on 16 August and has since shipped an additional eight to Hanoi. Three further aircraft due for delivery this year will complete the initial order, but Sotona is hopeful of a follow-on commitment.
Two aircraft for the Czech air force – operated by state training agency LOM Praha – have been delivered, with a final pair due by the end of the year. LOM Praha holds four further options.
The first Hungarian example – one of a first tranche of eight on order – will be delivered by the end of next year, although Hungarian pilots are already training on the aircraft, says Sotona. Budapest has ordered four more Skyfoxes – in a reconnaissance configuration – but Aero Vodochody is still developing that version.
There is also a feasibility study underway into how the Hungarian aircraft can be “Gripenised”, with adjustments to flight displays to make them more consistent with those on the Saab Gripen operated by the country’s air force. Aero Vodochody signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Swedish manufacturer in April.
Two other potential customers who previously expressed a strong interest in ordering the aircraft – Senegal and Ghana – have since cancelled negotiations citing budget issues, says Sotona.
However, Africa remains a major target market, he says, with the region’s air forces responsible for most of the approximately 200 legacy L-39s still in government service. Aero Vodochody has performed maintenance, overhauls, or upgrades on many of them, so has a relationship with customers, says Sotona. Many of the remaining 500 or so L-39s still flying are owned by private pilots or training organisations.
Neighbouring Slovakia is another potential buyer, with Aero Vodochody in 2020 offering Bratislava “long-term” industrial participation in the programme, as well as an in-country training package, in return for a commitment for eight aircraft.
While no progress has been made, Sotona says a deal with Slovakia would be “logical” and a create a “nice triangle” with the Czech and Hungarian fleets. Slovakia has opted for the Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 as its primary combat aircraft, which involves sending its pilots to the USA for training, as the country does not have its own fleet of jet trainers.
Other possible future customers among NATO members and allies include Austria, Bulgaria and the Baltic and “Adriatic” countries, says Sotona.
While delivering early examples of the Skyfox and securing new customers is Aero Vodochody’s main preoccupation, aerostructures – alongside maintenance, repair and overhaul – remains an important part of the business. The company is a major supplier to programmes from Airbus, Embraer, and Leonardo.
In early October, it inked an MoU with Embraer to expand cooperation on the C-390, a programme it has contributed to for more than a decade, producing the rear fuselage and cargo ramp under a build-to-print arrangement, but also having design responsibility for the wing leading edge. It coincides with Prague’s commitment for two C-390s, with negotiations on that order nearing completion.
Although the deal, which Sotona describes as “huge for us”, slightly expands Aero Vodochody’s workshare on the military transport and tanker, the main benefit is that it “secures the relationship into the future”. It also comes as the Brazilian company steps up production of the type, on the back of recent orders from Austria, the Netherlands, and South Korea. This year, Aero Vodochody will produce 4.5 shipsets, increasing to seven next year, and potentially 10 by the end of the decade.
Aero Vodochody’s other main aerostructures customer is Spirit AeroSystems in Belfast, for whom it is the single-source supplier of the Airbus A220 wing leading edge. Production on that programme is expected to increase from around 100 sets of wings this year, to 130 in 2025.
The centre wing box for the Leonardo C-27J and the landing gear for the 19-seat L-410 NG commuter aircraft from sister Czech company Aircraft Industries are the other two main supplier contracts.
Aerostructures, says Sotona, will remain a key part of the business mix for Aero Vodochody. “It is a great contributor. We cannot live on it alone, but the advantage is the volume and stability it gives us.”
Aero Vodochody’s other aircraft programme – albeit one that is dormant – is the L-159, which was last produced in the early 2000s, although the company did manufacture a single additional aircraft for Iraq in 2017. Developed from the L-39 in the 1990s as an indigenous replacement for Russian-built light combat aircraft, the initial customer was the Czech air force, which took delivery of 72 examples, later furloughing all but 24.
Aero Vodochody spent years working with the defence ministry and other export organisations to find buyers and has since transferred most of the unwanted aircraft to Iraq and the US and UK arms of Draken International, which provides adversarial support services to air forces.
While Sotona admits restarting the programme is unlikely, he says the company still has all the production jigs and “we do not rule it out if an order came in”. His “ambition”, he says, is for Aero Vodochody to produce a supersonic version of the advanced trainer, although he concedes that resources are currently “very much focused on Skyfox”.
In 2020, Aero Vodochody was bought from investment group Penta by a joint venture comprising Czech defence and security group Omnipol and Hungarian businessman Andras Tombor, a former chief security adviser to prime minister Viktor Orban. Omnipol – which two years ago bought Aircraft Industries from its Russian owner in its own right – is responsible for Aero Vodochody’s management.
Sotona – who previously led another Omnipol business, surveillance equipment specialist ERA – says the new investors “have an appetite to invest”, and “always intended Aero Vodochody to be first and foremost an aircraft manufacturer”.
After many troubled periods during its more than 100 years of existence, Aero Vodochody is enjoying an uptick in its fortunes. The workforce has increased by almost half to 1,750 since Sotona joined three years ago.
Sotona says he would appreciate the full support of the Czech government in securing export deals for the aircraft, remarking on the role French President Emmanuel Macron has, for example, in promoting the Dassault Aviation Rafale. While the Czech Republic does not perhaps wield the military and soft power of France on the world stage, Sotona notes that Aero Vodochody is a large company by Czech standards and the nation’s sole producer of military aircraft.
President Pavel’s appearance this week perhaps indicates that those in power in Prague are serious about making the Skyfox an export success.
