The Philippine Air Force (PAF) has received its third and final battery of Rafael’s Spyder self-propelled surface-to-air missile (SAM).
A social media post by the PAF on 29 November showed a ceremony at Clark Air Base in Angeles city, Pampanga province, to mark the Spyder battery’s formal acceptance into service. Two days earlier another social media post by the PAF’s Air Defense Command (ADC) showed the battery being inspected upon arrival in the Philippines.
The PAF said the new Spyder battery batch will join the other two batteries – received in November 2022 – in operation with the PAF’s 960th Air and Missile Defense Group, which is based at the Cesar Basa Air Base in Pampanga in the west of the Central Luzon region.
The ADC said the three Spyder batteries were procured as a part of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Horizon 2 modernisation programme, which ran from 2018 to 2022.
The PAF funded the Spyder acquisition through funding worth about PHP5.8 billion (USD99.5 million) allocated in 2020 and 2021 under the PAF’s ground-based air defence (GBAD) programme.
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