Czech company Aero Vodochody introduced, together with its Israeli partner Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the F/A-259 Striker, a multirole aircraft for close air support, counter-insurgency operations and border patrolling with interception capabilities. The Striker is heavily based on the L159 which Aero decided to decline in two new versions, the New Generation (NG) aimed at training, and the F/A-259 which becomes a single-seat aircraft developed for air-to-ground missions.
New aircraft, powered by a Honeywell F-129 engine, can carry weapons to perform interception missions. He thus has seven points of carriage. While avionic has been completely changed, the aerostructure maintains a 90 per cent commonality with the original aircraft L159. The main changing comes in the wing: the old tip fuel tanks are replaced with the new “wet” wings as the 700 litres previously contained in the tips are now moved inside the wing, allowing to improve aerodynamics and reducing the drag.
Several changes can be made to the F / A-259 in order to increase the capabilities of aircraft. It can thus be equipped with an AESA radar with active antenna, a refuelling capacity in flight.
