Two grey jets with the yellow-and-blue RMAF roundel on their intakes rolled to a stop at Labuan Air Base on Friday, 30 October 2026. They had flown down from Sacheon in South Korea, where Korea Aerospace Industries builds them, and they are the first two of eighteen FA-50M light combat aircraft ordered by the Royal Malaysian Air Force.

Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin was on the ramp to receive them, according to Bernama and Malay Mail. Labuan, an island off the coast of Sabah on Borneo, was only a transit stop. The jets' home will be RMAF Kuantan Air Base on the peninsula, where the official handover ceremony is planned for mid-November.

For an air force that has spent years juggling ageing Hawks and a small fleet of Flankers, the arrival is a long-awaited step. The FA-50M is meant to do two jobs at once: train the next generation of RMAF fighter pilots and fly real combat missions.

Eighteen jets, two jobs

Malaysia bought the aircraft under its Fighter Lead-In Trainer and Light Combat Aircraft programme. KAI announced the roughly US$920 million deal in February 2023 and the final contract was signed in May that year. The FA-50 beat a crowded field that included India's Tejas, Italy's M-346, Turkey's Hürjet and Pakistan's JF-17.

The FA-50 is the armed member of KAI's T-50 Golden Eagle family, which was developed with Lockheed Martin. It is a two-seat, single-engine supersonic jet powered by a General Electric F404 turbofan, with a radar, a gun and pylons for missiles and guided bombs. In other words, it looks and flies like a small fighter, which is exactly what makes it useful as a stepping stone to one.

The schedule set out by the minister is brisk. Six FA-50Ms are due by April 2027, and the rest are expected in early 2028. They will fly with No. 15 Squadron, which already has more than 200 personnel at Kuantan.

Astro AWANI's report on the arrival of the first two FA-50Ms in Malaysia (in Malay).

The Hawks are on their way out

The new jets are tied directly to the retirement of the RMAF's British Aerospace Hawks. Khaled linked the programme to "the planned decommissioning of the RMAF's Hawk aircraft in 2028," Bernama reported. Malaysia flies the Hawk in its training version and as the Hawk 208, a single-seat light fighter variant built for the RMAF in the 1990s.

Once the Hawks are gone, the ministry will decide how many FA-50Ms to station at Labuan, the base that covers Malaysian Borneo and the South China Sea approaches. For now, the island has served as the jets' first landing on Malaysian soil.

Pilots already trained in Korea

The aircraft have not arrived to an empty hangar. According to the ministry, 57 core personnel trained in South Korea ahead of delivery: six pilots, six engineering officers and 45 technicians. The first six pilots completed their flight training on 21 October.

Khaled also said the government will consider a second batch of more advanced fighters, but the supplier country has not been decided. That leaves the bigger question of Malaysia's next frontline fighter open, even as the light combat jets begin to arrive.

Malaysia joins a growing club of FA-50 operators in the region and beyond, including the Philippines and Poland. For the RMAF, Friday's landing at Labuan was the moment a three-year-old contract turned into hardware on the ramp.

Sources: Bernama, Malay Mail, The Star, Free Malaysia Today, Korea Aerospace Industries, Wikipedia