The Malaysian Army Aviation ( ms, Pasukan Udara Tentera Darat; PUTD) is the

army aviation An army aviation unit is an aviation-related unit of a nation's army, sometimes described as an air corps. These units are generally separate from a nation's dedicated air force, and usually comprise helicopters and light support fixed-wing airc ...

branch of the

Malaysian Army The Malaysian Army ( ms, Tentera Darat Malaysia; Jawi: تنترا دارت مليسيا) is the land component of the Malaysian Armed Forces. Steeped in British Army traditions, the Malaysian Army does not carry the title ‘royal’ () as do th ...

. Currently equipped with

helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

in the liaison, transport and light attack roles. The Malaysian Army also plans to equip PUTD with dedicated attack helicopters in support of

units.

History

The PUTD was formed on 1 July 1994 at the

Royal Malaysian Air Force The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF, ms, Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia; TUDM; Jawi: ) was formed on 2 June 1958 as the Royal Federation of Malaya Air Force (; ). However, its roots can be traced back to the Malayan Auxiliary Air Force format ...

(RMAF) helicopter base in

Kluang Kluang ( Jawi: كلواڠ), formerly Keluang, is a town in Kluang District, Johor, Malaysia. Kluang was founded in 1915 as the administrative capital of central Johor by the British. It is located in the centre of the state and is within 90 min ...

Johor Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan ...

. The Army Aviation Project Team was formed to oversee the planning and implementation into the formation of an Army Aviation Wing for the

. At the beginning, six RMAF Officers and six Army Officers were attached to this Pioneer Team to establish PUTD. They are two pilots is Colonel Stephen Ngiau Tai Kong RMAF (Director of the Project Team), Lieutenant Colonel Hj Ibrahim Bin Hj Hashim RMAF, three air force engineering officers named Major Mohd Asri Bin Hamzah RMAF, Major Norazman Bin Saparon RMAF dan Captain Izaidi Bin Musa RMAF and one air force logistics officer is Major Sarudin Bin Chonil RMAF. Whereas another six army officers headed by Lieutenant Colonel Masood Bin Zainal Abidin from

RAMD The Royal Malay Regiment ( ms, Rejimen Askar Melayu DiRaja; Jawi: ) is the premier unit of the Malaysian Army's two infantry regiments. At its largest, the Malay Regiment comprised 27 battalions. At present, three battalions are parachute train ...

(retired as Deputy Chief of Army with Lieutenant General rank) as Deputy Director, Major Azmi Bin Ariffin from

Royal Armoured Corps The Royal Armoured Corps is the component of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 Tank and the Scimitar Reconnaissance Vehicle. It includes most of the A ...

, Major Idris Bin Mohamad from REMEC, Captain Nazri from KP, Captain Othman Bin Badron from REMEC and Captain Adnan Bin Mat Din from

Rejimen Askar Jurutera DiRaja Royal Army Engineers Regiment () is a group combat support military units of the Malaysian Army that provides combat engineering and other engineering support to the Malaysian Army. History Rejimen Askar Jurutera DiRaja was founded on 22 Apr ...

. A combination of expertise from various specialisation that made PUTD where it is today. They are twelve dedicated Officers of Malaysian Armed Forces that become pioneer in this new establishment of the new era of Malaysian Armed Forces with multi-tasking capabilities especially for the Malaysian Army. PUTD was started flying operations on 11 March 1995, and 881 Squadron as declared operational, with an initial complement of 10 SA316B Alouette III liaison helicopters that were transferred from RMAF. The Kluang Airbase was handed over to PUTD in January 1996. 881 Squadron was declared fully operational on 29 March 1997.

Roles and responsibilities

The roles of PUTD includes the following : * Provide tactical support to army formations * Light

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

role * Operate as part of a

combined arms Combined arms is an approach to warfare War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme vio ...

team with other army formations * Provide limited aerial fire support to army formations ** Anti armour support to army formations ** Direct fire support ** Attack targets of opportunity * Tactical transport * Emergency

medevac Medical evacuation, often shortened to medevac or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to wounded being evacuated from a battlefield, to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of a ...

* Long range observation and scouting * In theatre

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

Equipment

* Attack helicopters The Malaysian Army has identified the requirement of an

attack helicopter An attack helicopter is an armed helicopter with the primary role of an attack aircraft, with the offensive capability of engaging ground targets such as enemy infantry, military vehicles and fortifications. Due to their heavy armament they ...

for the PUTD. Several makes have been considered and evaluated, including the

Denel Denel SOC Ltd is a South African state-owned aerospace and military technology conglomerate established in 1992. It was created when the manufacturing subsidiaries of Armscor were split off in order for Armscor to become the procurement agency ...

Rooivalk The Denel Rooivalk (previously designated AH-2 and CSH-2) is an attack helicopter manufactured by Denel Aviation of South Africa. ''Rooivalk'' is Afrikaans for "Red Falcon", which refers to the lesser kestrel. Development of the type began in 19 ...

, Boeing AH-64 Apache Longbow,

Agusta A129 Mangusta The Agusta A129 Mangusta ( en, Mongoose) is an attack helicopter originally designed and produced by Italian company Agusta. It is the first attack helicopter to be designed and produced wholly in Europe. It has continued to be developed by Ag ...

TAI/AgustaWestland T129 ATAK The TAI/AgustaWestland T129 ATAK is a twin-engine, tandem seat, multi-role, all-weather attack helicopter based on the Agusta A129 Mangusta platform. The T129 was developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in partnership with Leonardo (Ag ...

and the

Eurocopter Tigre The Eurocopter Tiger is a four-blade, twin-engine attack helicopter which first entered service in 2003. It is manufactured by Airbus Helicopters (formerly Eurocopter), which arose from the merger of Aérospatiale's and DASA's respective helic ...

. Quantity and variety to purchased unknown. In 2016, six MD530G light attack helicopter ordered. * Light observation helicopters PUTD has 11 AW109 in inventory for light observation duties. One aircraft crashed and written off leaving 10 in inventory. This helicopter can be armed with a 20mm gun and/or rockets for area suppression missions. * Tactical transport helicopters This remains a responsibility of the

, though it is a logical progression that PUTD will be equipped with light and medium utility helicopters in the future. PUTD acquired 14

Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King (company designation S-61) is an American twin-engined anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft. A landmark design, it was one of the first ASW rotorcraft to use turboshaft engi ...

from Royal Malaysian Air Force as an interim solution before buying the new helicopter.

Units

At the moment, PUTD has two operational squadrons (No. 881 Squadron and No. 882 Squadron), though more units are planned. * 881 Squadron :No. 881 Squadron was formed in 1995 with 10 SA.316 Alouette III liaison helicopters transferred from the Royal Malaysian Air Force along with a group of pilots. The unit is commanded by a

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

. :In 2006, the squadron was strengthened with the delivery of 11 AW109 used for light observation duties. Five of the AW109s were delivered in December 2005 with the balance of the delivery made during 2006. These helicopters replace the retired SA 316 Alouette III. :The helicopters will be armed with 70-mm.

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

s, AIM Twin Missile Pack and 20-mm

autocannon An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bull ...

s. * 882 Squadron Transport squadron formed after they received 14 Sikorsky S61A-4 medium helicopters.

Inventory

References

External links

Army Pensioner Blog
{{Malaysian Army Army aviation Malaysia Army corps and regiments Military units and formations established in 1994