Malaysia holds to its FA-50M timetable, with four more Korean-built jets due in April 2027

Malaysia expects to receive four more FA-50M light combat aircraft from South Korea in April 2027, Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said on Saturday, holding to the delivery plan he set out when the first jets arrived last month. The batch would raise the Royal Malaysian Air Force's fleet of the type to six and is due before the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition, known as LIMA, in 2027.

Khaled gave the timetable to reporters in Kota Tinggi, in the southern state of Johor, after launching a school support programme involving the Malaysia Defence Intelligence Organisation at Sekolah Kebangsaan Panchor. He said the ministry had taken delivery of two aircraft at the end of October and that the other 12 would follow in phases, so that all 18 jets would be in Malaysian hands by March 2028.

All 18 aircraft will initially be based at the air force base in Kuantan, in Pahang state, the minister said. Any move to station them elsewhere would be weighed only after the air force retires its Hawk jets, which are still in service, he added.

The Star and The Vibes said Khaled received the first two aircraft at the Labuan air base on 30 October after they were flown in from Sacheon in South Korea. AeroTime's account from that day said only the lead jet landed then, with the second held back by a technical problem and expected before 1 November. The Star added that a formal handover ceremony had been planned for the Kuantan base in mid-November.

Malaysia signed the contract with Korea Aerospace Industries in 2023, buying 18 FA-50M aircraft for close to 4 billion ringgit under the 12th Malaysia Plan. The jets are being acquired through the Fighter Lead-In Trainer-Light Combat Aircraft programme, which is meant to replace the ageing Hawk fleet by 2028, give trainee fighter pilots an advanced lead-in aircraft and take on light combat missions.

Reporting from the first arrival filled in how the fleet will be manned. According to AeroTime, the lead jet, tail number M58-01, touched down at Labuan on a transit stop before heading on to Kuantan, escorted over the base by Hawk, F/A-18D Hornet and Su-30MKM aircraft. No. 15 Squadron at Kuantan will fly the type, and Khaled said at the time that the unit had more than 200 personnel, of whom 57 core staff, including six pilots, six engineering officers and 45 technicians, had completed training in South Korea.

The publication said that Korea Aerospace Industries valued the order at 920 million US dollars when it announced it in February 2023, and that the Malaysian version adds aerial refuelling and wider weapons options to earlier FA-50s and is to carry the PhantomStrike active electronically scanned array radar made by RTX, as on the FA-50PL ordered by Poland.

Saturday's remarks match what Khaled said at Labuan on 30 October, when he also put the fleet at six by April 2027, AeroTime reported. He said then that Labuan would eventually host part of the fleet, with the number to be settled once the Hawks are retired in 2028, which is consistent with his comment this week that wider deployment would wait for the Hawk drawdown.

The larger question is what comes after the 18. The air force's Capability Development Plan 2055, known as CAP55, calls for 36 light combat aircraft, double the current order, and Khaled said in October that no decision had been made on whether a second batch would be more FA-50Ms or a different type. He did not address a follow-on buy on Saturday, nor say when the first jets would be declared ready for operations.