The U.S. State Department has approved a potential sale of two different helicopters to the Philippines, the AH-1Z Viper and/or AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.
The Philippines was cleared to buy six AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters, produced by Bell, with an estimated price tag of $450 million. A more expensive option for six AH-64E Apache Boeing-made attack helicopters comes with an estimated cost $1.5 billion.
“The Philippines is considering either the AH-1Z or the AH-64E to modernize its attack helicopter capabilities,” according to a notification posted to the website of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
“The proposed sale will assist the Philippines in developing and maintaining strong self-defense, counterterrorism, and critical infrastructure protection capabilities,” it added.
Any package chose includes amount of related equipment like General Electric engines, Honeywell Embedded GPS, Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System kits, Hellfire missiles and other. Package also include contractor technical assistance, technical and logistics support services, and other related elements of logistics support.
U.S. State Department preapproves potential sales to foreign countries so that if the foreign partner does select an American-made weapon, the process will move more quickly. Philippines is s also considering the Turkish-made T129 ATAK combat helicopters.
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