The United States and Indonesian governments are discussing an assistance scheme that worth 15 million U.S. dollars to maintain Indonesian troops' C130 Hercules planes, a senior Indonesian Air Force officer said here on Tuesday.
Rear Marshall Sunaryo HW, the commander of Indonesian Air Forces maintenance command, said the U.S. maintenance assistance program on
Indonesian air force's Hercules planes would be provided under Periodic Depo Maintenance (PDM) program, to be financed by U.S. government's Foreign Military Fund (FMF).
"It would take 15 million dollars in the PDM program. All funds will be provided by the United States government. The maintenance program's scheme will be materialized in a cooperation contract whose discussion is underway at the moment. We expect that one plane can be overhauled later this year with the program," Sunaryo was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying.
According to Sunary, the Indonesian air force would submit two H-type Hercules planes in the plane maintenance program provided by the United
States.
"One of those planes would undertake the overhauling in the United States, the other one would undertake the overhaul in Indonesia," he added.
Sunaryo said that under the cooperation contract, the United States would provide technicians involved in the plane maintenance projects.
Meanwhile, Indonesian air force would send its technicians to study the plane's maintenance works in the United States, he said.
"With such a scheme in the program, it is expected Indonesian technicians would be involved in the maintenance of the following planes in
Indonesia, along with their American colleagues," Sunaryo said.
The Indonesian Air Force plane maintenance command commander said that actually Indonesia has the capability to undertake the maintenance works,
but the U.S. wanted to scrutinize the maintenance and make sure that the maintenance works are all in place and done properly and correctly.
Sunaryo also said that Indonesia proposed an idea to use part of the funds in the U.S. program to open a C130 Hercules propeller repair center
that would be the largest in Asia.
He also said that Indonesia received offers from U.S., Australia and Norway to use a total of six H-type C130 Hercules planes. Those countries
would replace their H type to J type Hercules planes for their air forces.
Indonesia faces problems with its ageing military planes that made some of them crashes, killed hundreds of lives from the military and civilians.