Minister calls for modernizing air force

Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said on Tuesday that three things were needed to enhance the capabilities of the Indonesian Air Force.

Delivering the keynote speech of an international power seminar, Purnomo said the first is weapons systems, which have been shown by a number of procurements for new aircraft over the past few years.

Second is the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), which Purnomo described as moving towards capital and technology-intensive military power. The third is information and communication technology.

The seminar, titled “Roles, Command and Control of the Air Force in Modern and Irregular War”, was held as part of a series of events celebrating the 66th anniversary of the Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU).

The minister said TNI-AU was procuring a number of aircraft types until 2014, including six units of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30MK2 jets and 24 units of F-16 Fighting Falcon Block 25.

The F-16s are part of a grant by the United States and will be upgraded to Block 32 standard with capabilities on par with the higher Block 52 standards.

Indonesia is also acquiring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for border monitoring and surveillance missions

“The Air Force is ready to modernize its weapons systems,” Purnomo said.

Purnomo added that TNI-AU would also add more radar so that all Indonesian airspace would be covered.

“We will add more and enlarge radar units so that the entire airspace would be covered by the primary radar of the Air Force Air Defense Command,” he said.

“Before the airspace is covered, TNI-AU will cooperate with civilian radar as secondary radar.”

Purnomo said both military and civilian radar would cooperate and complement each other because civilian radar was not as sophisticated and powerful as military radar.

Air Force chief of staff Marshal Imam Sufaat said Indonesia would have the best UAV available.

“We will study and develop the Israeli built UAVs which we buy from the Philippines,” he said.

“If necessary, our experts will develop it and make it even better.”

Imam said it would need some time before the UAVs could be ready with weapons for attack missions.

“We will study and develop our drone capacity. Right now, our command systems are incapable [of handling armed drones],” he said. (png)