Iraq’s New Trainers: The Czech Is On The Way

TA-50 drops tank
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Iraq may be on track to become the first export customer for South Korea’s T-50 Golden Eagle family of supersonic jet trainers and lightweight fighters. But the KAI/Lockheed Martin plane ran into a familiar set of international competitors, plus one dark horse contender. In the end, the dark horse won. Iraq will begin flying Czech L-159s in 2013, and begin receiving the main body of the order in 2014.

Iraq’s basic trainer purchase was Hawker Beechcraft’s T-6 Texan II, but a jet trainer is required as an interim step between the T-6 and more advanced planes like the F-16s that Iraq is buying. DJ Elliott of ISF Order of Battle says that South Korea’s TA-50 was suggested in fall 2007 to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, by MNSTC-I’s Coalition Air Force Transition Team. Other contenders can also be equipped as light attack jets, albeit without the same loaded supersonic capabilities. Iraq evidently decided that was good enough.

Contracts and Key Events

L-159A on top
new L-159T below
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Oct 12/12: Iraq. Iraq signs a $1 billion deal with the Czech Republic to deliver 28 L-159 trainers and light attack aircraft, and train Iraq’s pilots. Local Iraqi TV says that they’ll also set up a T-72 tank upgrade facility within Iraq, which may have been the decisive edge that helped them clinch the L-159 deal.

Aero Vodochody has confirmed that all of Iraq’s planes will be 2-seaters. The initial 4 will be converted from stored L-159As to L-159T trainers, retaining their previous attack and air policing capabilities. Those 4 are scheduled to arrive within 7 months. Another 24 new 2-seat L-159BQ jets will be delivered later, built to Iraq’s full specifications. They’re expected to begin arriving within 26 months, which is to say by December 2014.

Iraq is beginning to have obvious trouble with its airspace, as flights from Iran to Syria are taking place without any ability to stop them. It’s a convenient excuse for buying the jets, anyway. Iraq’s government, and its Shi’ite majority, both remember the Sunni Muslim terrorists who infiltrated Iraq from Syria, and caused so much trouble during the civil war. A government of those people next door is seen as an even worse outcome than Assad, though other factions within Iraq will see this situation differently. Meanwhile, Iraq needs advanced jet trainers, and also needs aircraft that can back up its handful of F-16s in basic air policing and ground attack roles after 2014. Aero Vodochody pre-announcement | Ceske Noviny in Czech and English | Agence France Presse | AP | Lebanon’s Daily Star | Russia’s RIA Novosti.

Contract: 28 L-159s

May 23/11: L-159. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says that a deal for Czech L-159s is close after a meeting with his Czech counterpart Petr Necas. This is the first trip to Iraq by a Czech prime minister since Saddam Hussein’s government fell in 2003, and the delegation also includes Czech Defence Minister Vondra. L-159 negotiations were described as “intensive” but not final in Czech newspapers.

The Czech delegation is busy with a range of initiatives, and one noteworthy non-defense deal involves Czech-made Zetor tractors, once known in Iraq under the Antar trademark, and license-built in Iskandariya, Iraq. A deal appears set to re-open that asesembly line, and the size of Iraq’s agriculture sector makes it an attractive opportunity on its own merits – even if Zetor/Antar isn’t done as a defense deal industrial offset. Ceska Pozike | Ceske Noviny || Russia’s RIA Novosti.

T-50 cockpit
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Oct 25/10: L-159. Prague Monitor and Iraq Business report that the Czech Republic might sell up to 25 used Aero L-159s to Iraq. Iraq had been holding a competition for 24 jet trainers between Korea’s T-50, the UK’s Hawk, and Italy’s M-346. The L-159 offers a competitive entry from the same manufacturer as the L-39s they used to fly, all in a package that’s fully compatible with NATO standards, and capable of carrying precision guided weapons and air-air missiles.

If the L-159 has become a focus, rather than just a competitor, it’s likely that the price of new aircraft proved prohibitive, and that Iraq is now looking at value over newness. Time will tell.

Feb 24/09: T-50. Iraq officially requests T-50 trainer jets during the Korea-Iraq summit in Seoul. The Korea Times reports:

“When the MOU was signed in late February, Talabani asked Lee to sell T-50 trainer jets and other advanced communication equipment to the Middle Eastern country,” a source close to the deal told The Korea Times, asking not to be named… “Once the terms and conditions of the sale, including prices, are met, they agreed to include them in a binding contract,” he added.”

The 2 countries also struck a $3.55-billion deal to develop oil reserves in southern Iraq near Basra, a move that could double or even triple the amount of oil to which South Korea has assured access. At the same time, ROK President Lee Myung-bak and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to give South Korean firms the right to participate in rebuilding projects inside Iraq. The Korea Times reports that Iraq plans to spend $150 billion on power plants and other forms of public infrastructure over the next 8 years.

Jan 15/09: T-50. Yonhap news agency and the World Tribune both file reports concerning Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi’s ongoing visit to South Korea. The minister was briefed concerning South Korea’s ongoing projects with Turkey, which include the K9/K10 Thunder mobile howitzer and the new XM2/Altay main battle tank.

Minister al-Obeidi also inspected the KAI/ Lockheed Martin T-50, and said that a defense expert in his entourage had recently test-flown the jet in Korea and expressed satisfaction. The Yonhap News Agency translation quotes him as saying that “The T-50 proved to us that South Korea has modern technology of an international standard.” Al-Obeidi added that more review would be required before the T-50 could be added to Iraq’s air force. Yonhap report | World Tribune.

Appendix A: TA-50s and the Region

Iranian Saegheh
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The T-50 family comes in a number of variants, from pure T-50 jet trainers, to a T/A-50 trainer that can act as a secondary fighter, to the full F/A-50 version that began serious development in late 2008.

A purchase of T/A-50s with their APG-67v4 radars, advanced Sidewinder missiles, and ability to carry precision guided weapons would effectively offer Iraq its first jet fighters. A T/A-50 would have to depend on superior situational awareness and piloting if confronted by Syrian or Iranian MiG-29s, but their induction would give Iraq qualitative parity or better versus many of the fighters currently flown by its semi-hostile neighbors: Syria’s MiG-21/ MiG-23/ Su-22s, and Iran’s F-4E/ F-5 variants/ F-7 MiG-21 variants. In a volatile region where hayba counts, those kinds of perceptions matter.

So, too, do personal ties. South Korea sent a 3,600-strong contingent to the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in September 2004 as part of the U.S.-led coalition, and a total of 18,000 South Korean troops served in rotation around northern Iraq until the end of their deployment in 2008.

That work was apparently valuable in establishing ties, and the countries are now discussing ways to broaden their economic relationship as well as their defense relationship. A February 2009 agreement that opens Iraqi public infrastructure contracts to Korean firms, while securing ROK investment to develop some of the oil fields near Basra in southern Iraq, appears to have set that process in motion.

Additional Readings

DID thanks Iraq Order of Battle author DJ Elliott for his assistance.

• DID – Czech L-159s: Cheap to Good Home

• DID FOCUS – Korea’s T-50 Spreads its Wings