The Irish Air Corps (IAC) are close to signing a contract with Austrian company Airborne Technologies (ABT) for three Self Contained Aerial Reconnaissance (SCAR) Pod systems to attach to its PC-9M fleet.
The Pilatus PC-9M aircraft of the IAC were delivered in 2004 and the fleet of six became weapons capable in 2006. The two elements of the weapons system comprise of a pair of HMP 250 gun pods and a pair of LAU-7 70mm Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket (FFAR) pods.
The FFAR are ballistic ‘dumb’ munitions and the HMP 250 pods are utilised in both the air-to-ground and air-to-air roles. Although structurally capable of supporting up to six hard-points the IAC configured PC9s are limited to four active stations.
At the time of writing the IAC are engaged with ABT for the potential procurement of up to three examples of the company’s SCAR Pod system with a value currently unknown with a potential signing around the end of Q2 or beginning of Q3 this year.
The advantage of the ABT solution is that the system is already proven on the PC9 platform and battery powered with Wi-Fi communications, thus requiring no modifications to the host aircraft. The same pod system is also intended to be integrated onto the EC135 aircraft of 302 Squadron a…
