The Royal Thai Army has a project to procure light general-purpose aircraft, equipped with standard equipment with repair parts and ground equipment of 3 units according to the project of procuring general-purpose aircraft to replace 2 types of U-17B type general purpose aircraft, totaling 4 units, including aircraft hangar and aircraft hangar and 2 helicopters and a pilot and aircraft mechanic training course. The responsible person is Department of Transportation, Royal Thai Army, budget 299.938 million baht, with the median price derived from a single operator, Forth Corporation Public Company Limited.
According to the data, FORTH is the representative of the Kodiak 100 aircraft in Southeast Asia. Which makes it quite certain that the aircraft that the Army will procure will be the Kodiak 100, with an average price of about 99 million baht per aircraft.
The Kodiak 100 is a single-wing propeller-engine passenger plane. Travel speed 183 knots, flying range 2,096 kilometers, use 1 pilot and can transport 9 passengers. In Thailand, there are 2 Kodiak 100 privately owned boats and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment 1 unit.
The Royal Thai Army has already had two general-purpose aircraft procurement projects, which are two C208Bs from Cessna and a PC-12NGX from Pilatus 1 and 3 Kodiak 100s, a total of 4.
It is unclear what the Army plans for the C208B and Kodiak 100, as both are of the same class. have similar performance and can be used differently which, if comparing the advantages and disadvantages, including the use There should be no need for two similar aircraft to be procured. (Compare as simple as procuring a Camry and Accord to work together). The procurement of a small number of different aircraft made it difficult for both pilots and mechanics to train. Spare parts stocking, maintenance, and operation are often more costly than procuring a single aircraft.
The Army has a number of U-17Bs in service. Therefore, it is expected that more aircraft will be procured in the future. Which must see if there will be another aircraft model added or not or how will the Army plan to deploy all three light aircraft that are similarly procured and that differ in performance and functionality?
(TAF)