According to the JoongAng Ilbo, the Defense Ministry is considering purchasing a fleet of stealth F-35s by 2014 at the earliest.
Or so said the chairman of the Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff during a parliamentary audit today.
The F-35 is stealth, about 40 percent cheaper than the F-15K, and looks reasonably cool. Or at least cooler than Boeing’s X-32, which was downright fugly.
26 Comments
Will the US sell F-35’s to Korea? Considering all the recent blocks in sales to Korea, it seems that the US does not trust Korea with cutting edge technology.
I can’t help thinking this will be quite obsolete by the time they are flying in Korea. Wouldn’t a few thousand unmanned predator-type things be more useful? Could put all the skills of all those Korean game players to work….empowering an army of davids, and all that?
LA: This won’t be operational in the U.S. for a couple of years, so it definitely won’t be obsolete in 2014. This is also in the Herald:
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/S.....010052.asp
“Could put all the skills of all those Korean game players to work”
You’ve been watching old 80’s movie recently?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/
I doubt the F-35 will be “obsolete” by 2014, 2025, or maybe even 2100. The service life of good military aircraft (hopefully, it’s good) is measured in decades.
McDonnell (now Boeing)’s F-15 entered operational service in 1974 — it’s 32 years later and still the Eagle is the finest air-superiority tactical fighter in the world. With retrofitted avionics that thing will be in US service through 2020 and beyond — 50 years. Now, it’s true the F-15 will be outmatched by other aircraft, but those will be the F-22 and possibly the F-35. Which is why, I and many others propose, sales of F-22 and F-35 aircraft should be limited to the core allies of the United States (Japan, the UK, Canada, Australia) and not to unreliable countries like Korea.
Similarly, the B-52 is already 52 years in service and we still haven’t come up with anything that surpasses it. The last H model was produced in 1962. But the Air Force plans to use the B-52s through 2040, at which time it can be expected the planes will be 80 years old.
I don’t know what drugs the Boeing engineers were on when they came up with the X-32. When two aircraft compete, the brass always pick the better-looking airplane (see YF-22 vs. YF-3).
That should be YF-22 vs. YF-23.
I’d guess UCAVs will take over around 2030 or 2040. They can handle more than the 9 Gs humans can take and, look ma, no casualties.
Brendon, don’t forget about F4s :). They’re no longer used by the U.S., but are still used by a few countries around the world.
This is no longer true, which is why the F-22 is more necessary than many realize. The F-15 is seriously outclassed by the Eurofighter Typhoon, while the only thing really holding the SU-35 back is its inferior Russian avionics. The Eagle has had its day, and only inferior enemies with shoddily trained pilots keep this from being harshly exposed.
I don’t know if you guys reported on this or not but, all this crazy sexiness will be entirely useless:
“Seoul and Washington, however, are not likely to disclose a list of tactical nuclear weapons to be offered to the South in case of an emergency because it is likely to invite resistance from neighboring countries, such as China, Russia, Japan and Taiwan, military analysts said.
Tactical nuclear weapons expected to be provided for South Korea include the Tomahawk cruise missile capable of carrying 200 kilotons in a nuclear warhead, the AGM-69 short-range attack missile, the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile for B-52 bombers and the BGM-109G grounded-launched cruise missile, the analysts said.”
http://times.hankooki.com/lpag.....810440.htm
Tactical nuclear weapons is all you’re gonna need in this Cold War.
Defense Industry Daily has a pretty good write up on this, for the korean challenged. It points out that it is only being considered against the F-15Ks and the fact that its 60% cheaper is subject to change…
The United Korea will serve China in 2012. The US will not sell this plane to the “terrorists in FarEast Asia”. The UK (the old UK may have to change its name) will threaten Japan daily then.
Things will rapidly change in 2009 as the US leave this 2nd VietNam.
Save a lot of money if the ministry of defense just bought a couple of box cutters. you can fuck a country up real bad with a couple of box cutters
“I doubt the F-35 will be “obsolete” by 2014, 2025, or maybe even 2100. The service life of good military aircraft (hopefully, it’s good) is measured in decades.”
Either way, it doesn’t matter. Have a look at what the North Korean airforce uses: MiG-17s, MiG-19s, MiG-21s, MiG-23s, and a few MiG-29s.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....ipment.htm
“…you can fuck a country up real bad with a couple of box cutters…”
You mean of course fanatical ROK agents on North Korean airliners. Or were you thinking of the civilian airlines of some other potential ROK foe?
My first thought was that DPRK has no civilian airline — can’t afford it. I was wrong wrong wrong of course, the first thing any new country does is form an airline for prestige purposes and subsidize its ops. And according to the link below they’ve got domestic routes (!) though it doesn’t specify what they are.
If there is any airline in the world that would have had incredibly tight security prior to 9/11, I would have thought it to be “Air Koryo”. Instead of smiling and gracious hostesses, I picture grim-faced tae kwon do masters with bulges under their shoulders, squinting narrowly at thoroughly cowered passengers.
But who knows? The world is full of surprises. Found only this so far which is interesting if you didn’t already know it (maybe I’m the only one here); maybe there’s a web site out there that North Korean smiling airline stewardesses, just like we expect to find elsewhere in the world.
A challenge for any host blogger here, since I know you like lovely photos.
http://hasbrouck.org/articles/DPRK.html
“…Since 1999, the national airline of the DPRK, Air Koryo, also known as Chosonminhang (IATA airline code “JS”) is no longer embargoed by the USA government. (Cubana and Libyan Arab Airlines remain embargoed; among other airlines more recently removed from the embargoed list are Iran Air and Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines).
Although it has joined IATA, the international airline association, Air Koryo has no representation in the USA and does not participate in any of the USA-based computerized reservations systems or airline financial clearinghouses. So, as a practical matter, it is impossible for USA travel agents to make reservations or obtain tickets on Air Koryo except by having a local agent buy them at a Air Koryo office in some country to which they fly. So only likely way to be able to obtain Air Koryo tickets would be as part of an air-inclusive tour package to the DPRK from China or Russia.
In addition to its domestic routes, Air Koryo flies only (so far as I have been able to verify) from Pyongyang (IATA airport and city code “FNJ”) to Beijing, Moscow, and Khabarovsk (in the Russian Far East). A variety of air routes are available, via either the Atlantic or the Pacific, between the USA and Beijing, Moscow, or Khabarovsk….
Bon voyage!”
Found ‘em! (pictures of DPRK airline hostesses I mean).
Not exactly smiling, but not frowning either, maybe their expression is simply the proper socialist “businesslike” one. Serving customers from the aisle carts, a formidable array of bottled drinks are pictured, I hope some of them are alcoholic, try one of them instead of reaching for a boxcutter & you’ll end up feeling a whole lot better about things in general.
An unofficial site, looks like maybe it was done by a British citizen in HK, http://hk.geocities.com/hkgalbert/
Music will play (DPRK national anthem?), click on “album” link to see the pictures, looks like the fleet of Soviet airplanes is small enough that the web site host has a picture of each indiv aircraft in the album as well.
A most graceful flying crane symbol for the airline fuselage, that was unexpected.
Official website in English presents the expected stern image, not much about the airline specifically in spite of its title, seems to be submerged in other official info.
http://www.korea-dpr.com/airkoryo.htm
Uh oh, Air Koryo banned for flight ops currently (as of July 2006) in the EU due to safety concerns, that definitely takes away any smile from the hostesses faces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Koryo, scroll down to the bottom paragraph.
But if one of their aircraft has to go down at least it won’t be because of boxcutters, may God forbid that ever happens.
Hm. I know nothigna bout military matters, but the wiki site and the articles point out that the JSF has several partners jointly developing it—where the “level” of partnership is determined by amount of dollars they put it. It also appears that, as usual, several variants will be available. I assume that the US version will be the most uber, and will be something like a future F-18. The other versions for the smaller countries will probably be something like future versions of F-16–good for US export, but not really for domestic consumption. ROK seems pretty serious about fighter development, so it’s hard to believe that will be a good sell. The french offered pretty generous technology transfer with Rafael, and there is also the Eurofighter. If they get really pressed, they can get some Russian planes too. South Korea is a big arms importer so talk like this will only get the sellers heat up for competition. Price is the key I guess.
Knowing Korean politics, the pressure will be for domestic developement. Last time Korea talked about getting some Uber US weapons like the F-18, they just opted to get more F-16, so they might decide that it’s just cheaper and faster to pump out more F-15K. It’s not like the Korean F-16 can’t do the job. They don’t really need this. They are already wasting money on AEGIS for a blue water navy that will NOT be joing US in police actions around the world.
The conspiracy side of me makes me believe that there is more to the eye to the “trainers” that are the golden eagles. US arms dealers will probably sell if ROK waves money.
Brendon Carr said:
“Which is why, I and many others propose, sales of F-22 and F-35 aircraft should be limited to the core allies of the United States (Japan, the UK, Canada, Australia) and not to unreliable countries like Korea.”
I agree with this, but seeing that the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, Norway, and Denmark (in addition to the US, UK, Australia, and Canada) helped foot the bill for development, I guess they have to be offered the option to buy F-35s as well.
It seems a little premature for Korea to be suggesting that they may buy some of these. Has anyone even offered to sell them any in the first place?
If they had participated in development, I would feel more confident in such a sale. To be fair, I am surprised that Japan didn’t participate in development either.
Looks like they’ll need those new planes sooner than later.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/54667
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/54667
christ, that was awesome!
Is the Eurofighter really better than the latest F-15s?
It has been a very long time since I was into military planes, and that was just in high school, but I did pick up some info out in the public domain back when I was looking into the F-15K Selection Drama and its anti-US kick.
Of course, you had all sides saying their plane was best and what not, and different non-Korean experts (who didn’t have the huge anti-US issues to deal with (whether they were for the US or not) saying different things —- but I remember one of them talking about either the French plane or the Eurofighter — saying that most of the “better than the F-15″ talk used as a crutch a big study done —- on the planes design - before it was built —- and that since that study, some of the systems and capabilities had been dropped due to costs and changing geopolitical circumstances.
So - again - is the Eurofighter really a proven plane better than the F-15s of today? I’d really like to have a good idea of the yes or no of this…
Anyway, I was thinking of the F-4 before Nomad mentioned it.
I also wonder out of curiosity if — the fleet of F-4s (and the pilots and servicing and all that) South Korea puts out would be a match for North Korea’s air force and air defenses?
The F-4 has been a work-horse of a plane for a long, long time, and I would imagine, if the airframes aren’t falling apart, they would still be a match - in a nation that has the resources to train and maintain them - against most other nations of the world —- who aren’t like the US, Western Europe, Russia, China, Japan - and any other rich industrialized nations — in keeping their militaries up to date and trained.
But I’m not sure on that — just guessing….
For example — could we imagine South Korea’s air force of today in - say - battle over Kosovo? How would it have measured up? Or, if South Korea went to war with - say - Brazil? How would the F-4s and the South Korean service hold up?
Or against NK?
Oh. I did see one History channel show about fighters - mainly the F-22 and F-15 —— and it had US experts and US military people saying that the only plane that was proven against the F-15 was the F-22 —– but based on training missions, the F-22 slaughtered the F-15. They did a lot of interviews with both F-22 and F-15 pilots talking about these tests where 1 F-22 would go against multiple F-15 —— and it sounded a lot like the German U-boats against allied shipping early in WWII.
Some airforce guy might want to say somethign on this, but it is my understanding that the F-16K is Korea’s replacement for the F-5s and the F-15K is Korea’s replacement for the F-4s. I think an important reason why Korea chose the F-15K, is because Boeing promised help in building one of those future FX kinda planes for Korea. I hope South Korea isn’t so desperate to send out the old F-5s against the DPRK Mig 21 regardless of DPRK’s lack of training.
I don’t think anyone can really say that F-15K is in the “next generation” plane category. But I don’t think Korea really was looking to get a “next generation” plane—they wanted to get a current generation plane pronto. If they buy the Eurofigher, God only knows when they will actually receive them—and God only knows if it will actually perform. The price was also probably scary. Rafael is nice plane to have in the competition to get the F-15 prices lower, but South Korea probably don’t need that kind of plane anyway. Realistically, with US airforce hovering around the neighborhood, ROK military people probably assumed that they don’t really need a fighter, they need something that can bomb.
Sometimes I wonder if ROK keeps the F-4s and F-5s just to keep the civvies like me feel safe everytime I look at the North vs South quantity vs quality comparison.
My question is, how capable is the A-50 against Mig 21?
VW–The F-5 is generally considered equivalent to the MiG-21. I’m sure the A-50, with its modern avionics, could easily outperform the MiG-21 in a dogfight.
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