The Qatar Emiri Air Force (QEAF) displayed its new AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters for the first time during the country’s annual National Day Parade on 18 December.
An QEAF Apache Guardian is seen in a still from Qatari TV coverage of the parade. (Al-Rayyan TV)
Local television coverage of the event showed seven Apache Guardians participating in the flyby.
The US Department of Defense awarded a USD667.5 million contract to Boeing in May 2016 to build 24 AH-64E attack helicopters for Qatar. The US Embassy in Doha announced in May that the first one had been handed over to the QEAF at Boeing’s Mesa plant in Arizona.
It was announced in the same month that the US State Department had approved the sale of a second batch of 24 AH-64Es to Qatar at an estimated cost of USD3 billion. The sale of 5,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapons Systems (APKWS) II for use with the Qatari attack helicopters was approved in April 2018. The APKWS is a guidance kit for 70 mm air-to-surface rockets.
Two UAVs were displayed on Doha's corniche during the parade. The smaller one appeared to be a Textron Systems Aerosonde, but the larger could not be immediately identified. (Al-Rayyan TV)
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