UPDATE 1: James Na questions the wisdom of South Korea pumping in the money to indigenously develop jet fighters.
ORIGINAL POST: Update on yesterday’s post on the ROKAF’s expansion plans (from the Hanguk Ilbo):
- Acquire 40 F-15K "Slam Eagles" by 2008.
- Acquire additional "F-15K-level" fighters between 2009 and 2015.
- Indigenously develop and mass produce next generation "stealth" fighters–a project codenamed the "KFX"–between 2007 and 2018. The KFX’s capabilities are expected to be somewhere between the KF-16 and F-15K.
A Defense Ministry official said that currently, the ROKAF was capable of attacking targets only in areas south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line, but that once the ROKAF’s planned upgrades were complete, Korean aircraft would be able to hit targets throughout the entire Korean Peninsula and parts of China.
Cool graphic in that piece, BTW. Be kinda cool if the KFX turned out looking like that.
Mingi, meanwhile, asks some very pertinent questions about Seoul’s weapon acquisition process–be sure to read them. Just to add something here, the development and mass production of the KFX will reportedly cost 12 trillion won between 2007 and 2018. This is more than double the 5 trillion won to be spent on acquiring a full 40 F-15Ks. Given how the capabilities of the KFX should be somewhere between an F-16 and an F-15, this would seem to suggest that twice as much money is being spent on acquiring a plane that’s just not as good. Having said that, I don’t know how many KFX they are looking to acquire with that 12 trillion, and there are always benefits that come from developing technology yourself.
7 Comments
There must be a mistake somewhere with this article. By definition a “stealth fighter” can not be somewhere between a non stealth F16 and a non stealth F15K. A stealth fighter with avionics and engines from the 2007-2018 era would be vastly superior to a F16 or F15K. Also it will be vastly more expensive. Highly unlikely the US will share its knowledge on stealth. Since the Euro’s haven’t mastered stealth, they aren’t going to be sharing what they don’t know. Korea would have to do lots of basic research to do this, maybe that is why the price tag is so high.
Since trackback is not working for some reason, here is my link, which refers to this page.
So, they’re going to develop an F-35-like aircraft on their own? Riiiiiiiiight… They’ll talk a lot about this as being indigenous but when 2014 (taking into account the usual program delays) rolls around they’ll be buying F-35s to be built under license and once again Lockheed engineers and techs will support a healthy chain of juicy bars on the southern coast from Pusan to Chinju. Score one for the Kyongsangnam-do juicy girls of the next decade.
On the F-15K-level aircraft, they will try to make it seem like it’s a competition in a vain attempt to keep Boeing’s price in line but if Eurofighter and Dassault take it seriously they’d be stupider than I thought.
“Korea would have to do lots of basic research to do this”
“Korea” — “basic research”
does not compute!
oxymoron alert!!
Forget about North Korea…this press leak is just a hedge against the Japanese and also to add credibility to the dream of every hanchongnyun that Yankee will someday go home.
I am skeptical of the time frame of the KFX, not because of technical issues, but rather cost. The T-50 trainer program has already taken a large bite of the budget and there just doesn’t appear to be enough funding for the Air Force for the KFX program to realistically get anywhere. The ROKAF needs to either curtail or altogether terminate any possible purchases of the T-50 in order to leave enough funding for future projects.
Has the ROK been successful in marketing it’s fighter abroad? I thought Indonesia and UAE were shopping.