(DEFENCE SECURITY ASIA) — The Philippine Air Force is reportedly looking for new long-endurance drones as shortages of spares and delays in technical support for its Israeli-built Hermes fleet threaten to shorten the time Manila can keep contested waters under continuous surveillance.

The reported search for medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) remotely piloted aircraft comes as Japan commits new surveillance drones and coastal radar, giving Manila another way to detect activity around its archipelago while leaving the longer-range patrol requirement open.

The immediate pressure falls on the Hermes 450 and Hermes 900, two aircraft from Israel’s Elbit Systems that gave the Philippine Air Force its first operational MALE capability and now expose the risk of relying on one supplier for both fleets.

Over the West Philippine Sea, the operational loss from a grounded drone is measured in hours of observation, because a shorter patrol may record an encounter but depart before it can establish where the vessels involved subsequently manoeuvre.

Japan’s approximately US$27 million Official Security Assistance grant, signed on November 9, 2026, will provide a coastal radar system for the Philippine Navy and surveillance drones for the Air Force, adding coverage around sea lanes that include the Luzon Strait.

Philippine Air Force spokesperson Colonel Alvin Jay Capinguian described the Japanese drones as a complement to existing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, a distinction that matters because their endurance, payload and aircraft numbers have yet to be disclosed.

The Philippine Air Force has reportedly leaned more heavily on Cessna C208B Caravan and Beechcraft C90 King Air aircraft for maritime surveillance, maintaining an airborne presence at the cost of relying on shorter sorties while its new patrol aircraft await activation.

American support adds another layer through unarmed United States Marine Corps MQ-9A Reapers operating rotationally from Philippine bases, but the availability of those aircraft follows an allied deployment cycle, leaving Manila’s ability to generate sustained national coverage a separate question.

Reported options include the American MQ-9B SeaGuardian and SkyGuardian, Türkiye’s Anka, Akinci and TB2, and South Korea’s KUS-FS, a field spanning aircraft designed for tactical surveillance, heavier payloads or extended maritime patrols under markedly different support arrangements.

Neither a formal winner nor a contract has been announced, and the absence of a public quantity, budget or delivery schedule makes it impossible to judge whether a future fleet could sustain parallel patrols across the archipelago.

For Manila’s Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept, a dependable watch matters because a maritime contact may first appear on coastal radar, then pass outside its coverage, requiring an aircraft to maintain the track and relay observations to the units responsible.

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro framed continued support for fielded equipment as a practical necessity, saying “We have systems that we need to continue to equip, because they exist,” a distinction with direct consequences for keeping Israeli-origin aircraft serviceable during diversification.

(READ) U.S. Deploys MQ-9A Reaper Drones to the Philippines as South China Sea Tensions Reach New High

How the Hermes Fleet Lost Patrol Capacity

Manila acquired the Hermes fleet through a government-to-government agreement with Israel under the Horizon 2 modernization programme, worth approximately US$163 million to US$175 million at historical exchange rates, bringing aircraft, control stations, training and integrated logistics support into one acquisition.

Three Hermes 900 systems accounted for nine aircraft, while the Hermes 450 package supplied three new airframes and one used spare, a starting inventory that gave the smaller fleet little depth once individual aircraft became unavailable for flying.

Then Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana confirmed receipt of two Hermes 450s by early October 2019, and deliveries continued into 2020, giving Manila time to build an operational capability around the aircraft, ground crews and support equipment needed for repeat sorties.

The 300th Air Intelligence and Security Wing’s 3031st Unmanned Aerial Reconnaissance Squadron operates the fleet, concentrating expertise in a unit that must divide aircraft and crews among maritime patrol, land surveillance and internal security missions when availability falls.

A standard Hermes 450 can typically remain aloft for roughly 17 to 20 hours, while some Hermes 900 configurations reach 30 hours or more, giving the larger platform greater potential to maintain contact beyond the time a shorter patrol can spare.

The Hermes 900 also carries roughly twice the payload of the smaller Hermes 450, depending on configuration, giving operators more latitude to combine radar and electro-optical sensors for wide-area detection and closer identification during a single maritime surveillance sortie.

Aircraft availability can erode before the inventory changes, because a missing replacement component can sideline an otherwise intact drone, while an unavailable sensor or data terminal can leave a flyable aircraft unable to perform the mission it was tasked to support.

A reported plan to transfer remaining Air Force Hermes 450 airframes to the Philippine Army could concentrate maintenance and parts stocks with an existing operator, although Manila would still need to establish how many transferred aircraft could return to regular service.

The larger Hermes 900 fleet faces a reported risk of cannibalization, a practice that could keep selected aircraft flying by borrowing parts from others while increasing the time and inventory needed to restore donor airframes if spares later arrive.

A May 2022 Hermes 900 crash-landing during a functional check flight after loss of communications temporarily grounded the fleet, illustrating how a shared system vulnerability can curtail sorties while providing no evidence that the incident caused the current parts problem.

(READ) Singapore Sharpens Military Edge: Hermes 900 Brings Long-Range Intelligence Power to RSAF

 

Why Spare Parts Have Become a Geopolitical Risk

Israel’s reported decision to prioritize domestic military demand after October 2023 put pressure on overseas deliveries, exposing how a supplier’s wartime allocation decisions can affect patrol availability thousands of kilometres away, even when the customer’s aircraft and crews are already in place.

Public details do not identify the Hermes components in short supply, the backlog or the support obligations affected, leaving insufficient evidence to determine how much of the reported readiness decline stems from factory allocation, repair turnaround or local inventory planning.

The near-term question is how much patrol coverage Manila can generate from the aircraft it already fields, while the procurement question is whether a different supplier can keep aircraft, sensors and ground systems serviceable during a prolonged period of demand.

Reported friction over Israel’s position on the West Philippine Sea may help explain Manila’s stance on new purchases, but that diplomatic dispute establishes neither why particular parts were delayed nor whether individual sustainment commitments were missed by either party.

Reported delays in the Elbit-linked Sabrah light tank programme broaden the procurement context, because difficulties across separate programmes give Manila reason to examine exposure to common suppliers while each contract still requires its own assessment of schedule and obligations.

Supplier diversification can reduce the effect of disruption in any single country, but bringing in another drone family requires new technical training, ground stations and spare inventories, which can dilute the manpower available to sustain the remaining Hermes aircraft during transition.

A larger local stock of frequently replaced components could absorb short disruptions, whereas access to repair tooling and approved technical data would matter more for faults that require specialized work and cannot be resolved through routine component replacement.

Predictable repair turnaround matters especially for expensive mission electronics, because keeping a reserve aircraft ready offers little protection if several platforms depend on a sensor or ground station component that must be sent abroad and returned before sorties resume.

Any supplier promising shorter replenishment times would still need to demonstrate how export permissions, local repair authority and factory priorities hold up under competing demand, since close bilateral ties can ease negotiations while leaving production bottlenecks and contractual restrictions intact.

The first operational indicator of improved sustainment would be a steadier rate of fully equipped patrols during training and maintenance cycles, which would tell Manila more about resilience than the number of aircraft an incoming contractor delivers in its first batch.

MQ-9B, Anka and KUS-FS Offer Different Patrol Models

The General Atomics MQ-9B SeaGuardian is the maritime-oriented option in the reported American offering, with surface-search radar suited to scanning broad areas and potential anti-submarine warfare functions that would depend on the sensors, support equipment and configuration Manila actually acquired.

The MQ-9B SkyGuardian shares the underlying aircraft family while emphasizing broader surveillance roles, so the distinction for Philippine planners lies in what the mission package can find and track over water, and how those tracks reach naval commanders.

Defence analyst Max Montero called his identification of the SeaGuardian as a leading possibility a “guesstimate,” leaving its maritime sensors and allied interoperability open to comparison while providing no basis for treating it as Manila’s preferred aircraft or an imminent acquisition.

Turkish Aerospace’s Anka brings a regional precedent through Malaysia’s acquisition, which demonstrates Southeast Asian interest in its long-endurance surveillance role while leaving the scale of local maintenance, sensor integration and Philippine-specific support terms open for any eventual offer.

Baykar’s twin-engine Akinci offers heavier payloads and potential strike capacity, widening the missions an operator could undertake while increasing the importance of maintenance staffing and raising separate decisions about weapons clearance, command authority and the signalling of armed patrols.

The lighter Bayraktar TB2 sits closer to the tactical end of the reported field, where acquisition of more aircraft could distribute coverage across several sites, but sensor capacity and time on station would determine its usefulness for distant maritime patrols.

Korean Air’s KUS-FS is a larger South Korean aircraft designed for strategic ISR, communications relay and electronic warfare, giving it a different mission profile while its production and fielding schedule leaves the timing and scope of any export support uncertain.

The Philippines’ FA-50PH relationship with South Korea offers an established channel for discussing training and industrial support, though a combat aircraft supply chain provides limited evidence about depot access, sensor maintenance or software support for a separate uncrewed platform.

Basing and data links could narrow the practical differences between airframes, because relocating closer to patrol areas can recover time on station, while beyond-line-of-sight control becomes more important when distance or terrain interrupts contact with a ground terminal.

For any option, usable endurance would depend on the sensors carried, transit distance, recovery conditions and availability of a relief aircraft, so a meaningful comparison would measure coverage delivered over repeated missions under the same basing and support assumptions.

Japan’s Radar Grant and US Reapers Add Layers of Coverage

Japan’s November agreement marks its first defence equipment transfer project under Official Security Assistance, linking a Philippine Navy coastal radar and Air Force surveillance drones in a package that could help operators check whether a contact detected from shore merits airborne investigation.

The coastal radar’s position and coverage will shape how far that benefit extends, because geography limits fixed sensors, while an aircraft can look beyond their horizon if it has the endurance, communications and mission equipment to reach the relevant area.

A common track picture could let Philippine crews match airborne observations with surface radar detections across the South China Sea and Luzon Strait, but the grant’s disclosed equipment list leaves the terms for data exchange and operational integration uncertain.

United States Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 has operated MQ-9A Reapers from Basa Air Base, with an additional presence reported at Antonio Bautista Air Base on Palawan, a location that can shorten transit to waters near Second Thomas Shoal.

The unarmed, rotational posture under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement supports shared maritime domain awareness and familiarizes Philippine crews with the MQ-9 family, while actual coverage remains tied to United States tasking and the duration of each deployment.

Manila has received two ATR 72-600 long-range patrol aircraft under an approximately US$114 million contract, adding a crewed platform designed to combine radar, electro-optical equipment, signals intelligence and communications in a single mission suite once activation is complete.

The two ATR 72-600s are still reported to be in pre-activation, so the contribution of their sensor suites depends on trained crews, mission-system readiness and the sortie rate the Air Force can generate from a two-aircraft fleet.

The Caravan and King Air can cover priority windows while the ATR aircraft prepare for service, but sustaining repeated patrols with shorter-endurance turboprops adds transit legs and crew rotations, placing a greater burden on the aircraft already available.

ScanEagle systems provide tactical ISR for Philippine units, while locally developed Air Military Ordnance Carrier and Military Air Ordnance Yielder drones address smaller armed missions, giving commanders options at shorter ranges while leaving extended open-water observation dependent on other aircraft.

These overlapping deployments can complicate efforts to exploit gaps in any one sensor’s coverage, but their combined effect depends on whether crews can hand over a contact reliably when a drone recovers, a patrol aircraft departs or a ship moves beyond coastal radar.

The Philippines’ Next Drone Fleet Will Be Judged by Patrol Hours

Under the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept, aircraft endurance has strategic value when it allows Manila to sustain surveillance over separated maritime approaches, particularly when an incident demands observation in one area while routine patrols must continue in another.

A future basing plan would have to balance shorter routes to patrol areas against the support burden of dispersed operations, because each additional operating site needs reliable communications, recovery arrangements and enough maintenance capacity to turn aircraft around.

Remote crews can rotate during a long mission, yet continuous surveillance also consumes sensor operators, analysts and maintainers, making the logistics footprint of a MALE fleet a direct constraint on the number of missions Manila can run concurrently.

A layered surveillance network could hedge against interrupted drone links by passing a contact between aircraft, shore radar and maritime units, provided operators can reconcile sensor reports and retain enough independent coverage to keep tracking through the interruption.

An aircraft with potential strike capability would create a separate force-posture decision, because weapons integration and rules for employment affect how a sortie is interpreted, while the current surveillance requirement rests on sustained collection and timely distribution of observations.

The choice of supplier will also influence how much operational information the Philippines can share with partners and how much technical support it must seek abroad, two questions that turn on data access, equipment permissions and the terms of sustainment.

Maintaining usable Hermes 900s during any transition could preserve a pool of trained crews and patrol hours while a successor is introduced, although that overlap would require continued funding and parts support for a fleet already facing reported shortages.

With quantities and schedules still undisclosed, it is too early to determine whether the Philippine Air Force envisages a single replacement fleet, a mixed inventory or a supplementary purchase that leaves the Hermes 900 in service for selected missions.

The Japanese grant and allied rotations show Manila can draw on several partners for sensors and coverage, while the forthcoming procurement decisions will determine whether it can field a national fleet with enough local support to withstand disruption abroad.

The consequential measure for Manila will be how often a second aircraft can take over before the first leaves station, because that handover turns isolated observations into a continuous account of what unfolds in the West Philippine Sea.