PTM: PESAWAT TEMPUR MURAH / LCA: LOWCOST COMBAT AIRCRAFT


Countries with low annual budget for defense can only develop lowcost combat aircraft (LCA) or pesawat tempur murah (PTM), if they wish to develop own tactical combat aircraft at all in a short term. Malaysia is now such a country with low annual defense budget. The following are diagrams of PTM concept:

Top view of PTM.

Side view of PTM.

Front view of PTM.

Side view of PTM with radar, pilot, anti-materiel rifle, landing gears & electric engine visible.

PTM or lowcost combat aircraft is small, that its length and wingspan are only 6.0m. It can accommodate only 1 pilot and powered by single electric engine rotating a pair of contra-rotating propellers. 

PTM's standard weapon is twin automatic anti-materiel rifles installed inside the fuselage, where their ammunition boxes can be replaced manually by the pilot.  There are 4 hard points on the wing (2 on each side) to mount small missiles, rockets and bombs. The wing has rearward extension on both sides at the wingroot to serve as tailwing. 

PTM can be operated unmanned, and a squadron of unmanned PTM can be led by a piloted PTM in a mission. Such mission will not only be at very low cost, but also very low risk as only a single pilot is used to "pilot" the whole squadron.

PTM will be very effective as the weapon for low-intensity warfare including COIN (counter insurgency) operation against lightly armored ground targets.

Developing PTM in a short term however will not affect a plan to develop a more sophisticated combat aircraft such as advanced light fighter (LFX) in long term. The development of PTM can also be an offset program for a purchase of a squadron of light fighter from a manufacturer, besides being the embryo for the LFX. The production cost of a PTM is expected to be lower than the cost of a Mercedes Benz S-class.





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