Following its announcement of plans to accumulate 80 French Rafale light-weight fighters, and widespread reviews of its curiosity in and help for the Russian Checkmate fighter program, the United Arab Emirates has chosen the Chinese language Hongdu L-15 to function its air pressure’s subsequent technology jet coach. 12 of the plane will reportedly be bought in an preliminary batch with choices for as much as 36 extra, making a complete acquisition of 48 plane doubtless. Chief government of the Tawazun Financial Council, Tariq Abdul Rahim Al Hosani, reportedly acknowledged relating to the deal: “We’ve reached the ultimate levels of negotiations with the Chinese language aspect, and a ultimate settlement might be concluded quickly.” The L-15 was notably exhibited on the Dubai air present in November 2021, and is broadly thought-about probably the most succesful coach on the planet when it comes to fight efficiency permitting it to additionally function extremely capably as a formidable light-weight fighter.
The L-15 is among the lightest manned fight jets on the planet to make use of twin engines, offering engine redundancy for fight missions and thus improved survivability. It additionally contributes to the plane’s excessive fly efficiency, which is similar to that of the American F-16 Preventing Falcon already in UAE service albeit with a considerably decrease pace and endurance. The L-15 is a by-product of the JL-10 coach which entered service from 2010, and is taken into account extra superior than China’s different coach lessons the JL-8 and JL-9. The truth that the L-15 which integrates better fight capabilities onto the identical airframe design was chosen over the JL-10 might point out that the UAE intends it to have a secondary fight function. The plane makes use of an electronically scanned array radar and may reportedly even deploy PL-12 lively radar guided air to air missiles for standoff air to air engagements. This alone is enough to supply a bonus in air to air fight over the big majority of fighters fielded by neighbouring Iran, which use mechanically scanned radars and in all however two squadrons lack entry to lively radar guided missiles. The acquisition of the L-15 comes after the UAE reportedly rejected efforts by the U.S. to tie the sale of F-35 fighters to Abu Dhabi’s rejection of Huawei telecoms infrastructure, with the nation selecting Huawei over the stealth fighters and resisting stress from Washington to weaken ties to China. This might probably pave the best way to extra acquisitions of Chinese language armaments, with the UAE already being a serious operator of Chinese language Wing Loong collection assault drones.
