M28 Skytrucks for Nepal Army Air Wing

On 3 February 2023, PZL-Mielec has been awarded a USD 30 million contract to supply the Nepal Army Air Wing with two M28 Skytrucks. The two Block 05 aircraft will be delivered under US FMS funding by the end of April 2025. The deal also includes aircraft training, a spares package, medical equipment, six months of field service and ferry flights.

Based in Kathmandu the new Skytrucks will join two other Skytrucks that were supplied by the USAF in 2019. The Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) capabilities of the M28 are ideal for the high altitude, and short runways of Nepal. Some 20 years ago the first two M28s were donated to Nepal by the Polish Air Force. One of these, serial NA-048, crashed in May 2017 and the other, serial NA-041, has been withdrawn from use.

Ever since Lockheed Martin acquired Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation (which owns the PZL-Mielec factory), marketing of the Skytruck has increased. About ten aircraft are annually produced and military users include countries such as Indonesia, Jordan, Poland, Venezuela and Vietnam.

The US Air Force Special Operations Command used the M28 under local designation C-145A mainly between 2009 and 2015 with a few examples that soldiered on till December 2022.

Photo (just illustrative) by Alex van der Goot (Scramble Archive)