The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress of a possible $72 million deal to upgrade the Royal Malaysian Air Force's Boeing F/A-18D Hornets.
The proposed sale will cover a mid-life upgrade to the service's eight-strong fleet of aircraft, as well as six Raytheon ASQ-228 advanced targeting forward-looking infrared pods.
In addition, the deal will include software development, system integration and testing, test sets, aircrew and maintenance training, support equipment, spare and repair parts, and other elements, the agency said.
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© Australian Department of Defence |
Malaysia received eight two-seat Hornets in 1997 |
The announcement follows a request for the upgrades from the Malaysian government.
"Malaysia needs these assets to support future coalition operations and aircraft interoperability with the US and other regional partners," said the DSCA. "This will upgrade the current FLIR pod to a current configuration, reducing obsolescence issues." It will also give the Royal Malaysian Air Force "functionality similar to the US Navy", it said.
The principal contractor for the proposed deal is Boeing.
Malaysia's Hornet fleet was delivered in 1997, as listed in Flightglobal's MiliCAS database.
Source: Flight International
