laststandonzombieisland

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War ending with a fizzle the newly independant and westerinsed Czech Repulic invented a new light attack trainer for cheap export.

Based on the old L39 Albatross and L59 Super albatross designs used around the world by Com-Bloc couuntries, the L 159A Alca was made with western avionics to compete against the Hawk, Pampa and other designs. It is a single-seat light multi-role combat aircraft designed for a variety of air-to-air, air-to-ground and reconnaissance missions. The aircraft is equipped with a multi-mode Doppler Grifo-L radar (a variant of the Grifo-F x-band multi-mode, pulse-doppler radar), for all-weather, day and night operations. It can carry a wide range of NATO standard stores including air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and laser guided bombs.

it can fly 581 mph at sea level, clean and as low as 115mph before stalling which makes it perfect for CAS, COIN, air space policing against smugglers, and light attack. The crafts
range is 848 nmi with max internal fuel or a combat radius of right at 300nm carrying a gun pod, 2× Mark 82 bombs, 2× AIM-9 Sidewinder and 2× 500 L drop tanks

Armament includes provision for ZVI Plamen PL-20 2×20 mm gun pods and 7 hardpoints for up to to 2,340 kg (5,159 lb) of weapons including Sidewinder, IRIS-T, AIM-132 ASRAAM, AGM-65 Maverick, AGM-88 HARM and assorted  laser-guided and dumb bombs

Defense Industry Daily reports that the Czech government, feeling a budget crunch is moving to get rid of as many as three dozen of these craft they bought for themselves…cheap

Why buy a worn out MiG or blow your budget on a second hand F-16 when all you really need is a good trainer that can drop it like its hot, strafe a few protesters, or blast a rebel coup’s chopper out of the sky for pennies on the Euro?