Angola orders C295s for maritime surveillance

Angola has ordered three C295 transport aircraft from Airbus Defence and Space, writes Jon Lake.

The aircraft will be used in the maritime surveillance role, operated by the Angolan Navy, and will be tasked with monitoring the nation’s exclusive economic zone.
The C295 is a development of the Spanish-Indonesian CASA/IPTN CN-235 transport aircraft, but with a stretched fuselage and new Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127G turboprop engines, giving 50% greater payload capability.
The contract value was reported as €160 million ($185m), leading some observers to suggest that this price indicated that the aircraft would be equipped with specialised maritime surveillance equipment.
There are a number of C295 maritime surveillance and patrol versions, with varying levels of specialised mission equipment.
At the lower end of the scale, the C295 SAR is a dedicated search and rescue variant for the Canadian Armed Forces. Meanwhile, the Portuguese C295M PG02 has a palletized MPA fit, with an ELTA EL/M-2022A(V)3 search radar, a FLIR Systems Star Safire 380HD electro-optical (EO) sensor, and side-looking airborne radar (SLAR), as well as an Ultra airborne acoustic system.
Chile’s Airbus C295MPA is equipped with a Telephonics APS-143C(V)3 search radar and an unidentified magnetic anomaly detector (MAD), while Oman’s C295MPA has an ELTA EL/M-2022A radar, an under-nose forward-looking infrared (FLIR), and a forehead fairing, plus rear fuselage fairings for directional infrared counter-measures (DIRCM), as well as an Ultra airborne acoustic system. No MAD is fitted.
The C295MPA versions have provision for six hardpoints to carry torpedoes, missiles, mines and depth charges, and have also performed airborne separation tests using MBDA’s Marte Mk2 anti-ship missile.
They can be equipped with up to two pressurised, 10-shot rotary launchers, plus two racks for 93 A, F, and G-sized sonobuoys (113 total). The aircraft are fitted with a fully integrated tactical system (FITS).
According to Airbus, a total of 206 C295s have been ordered and 165 have been delivered to the armed forces of 15 countries.
In Africa, Algeria has six C295s, while Egypt has 24. Ghana operates three C295s, which it flew on behalf of the United Nations MINUSMA contingent in Mali.