Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the acquisition of 15 more Sikorsky Black Hawk multirole helicopters for the Philippine Air Force (PAF), Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles announced on 4 February. The move is "part of plans to slowly address the growing heli-lift deficiency of our armed forces", said Nograles, adding that Duterte also approved plans to decommission the PAF's ageing Bell UH-1 'Huey' multirole helicopters following a series of accidents in recent months, the latest of which occurred on 16 January in Mindanao and resulted in the death of all seven people on board. Nograles pointed out that the Department of National Defense (DND) had initially requested 76 new helicopters. That number was first trimmed by Duterte to 55, and then further cut to 15 owing to the economic challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lack of time left in the president's term, which ends in 2022. No further details were provided, including when exactly the helicopters will be ordered. The rotorcraft are expected to supplement the 16 S-70i Black Hawks ordered for the PAF in 2019, six of which have already been delivered. Delivery of the remaining 10 platforms is expected to be completed within the first quarter of 2021.
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机译：菲律宾总统罗德里戈·杜特雷批准了收购菲律宾空军（PAF）的15次更多的Sikorsky Black Hawk Multirole直升机，Cabinet Karlo Nograles于2月4日宣布。举动是“慢慢解决我们武装部队越来越多的Heli-Lift缺乏的计划的一部分”，NograLes表示，致命的荷兰也批准了在一系列事故后偿还PAF的老龄化贝尔UH-1'HUEY'MultioL的直升机最近几个月，最新的是在甘蓝岛1月16日发生，导致所有七人死亡。 Nograles指出，国防部（DND）最初要求76名新直升机。该数字首先由DUTERTE修剪到55岁，然后进一步削减到15，由于Covid-19大流行和总统期限缺乏缺乏时间的经济挑战，其在2022年结束。没有提供进一步的细节，包括直升机的何时会订购。预计旋翼飞机将补充2019年为PAF订购的16 S-70i黑鹰，其中有六个已经交付。预计剩余10平台的交付将在2021年的第一季度完成。
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