Are programs for manufacturing fighter planes “a blessing” or “a curse” for countries eager to join the elite circle of five advanced nations capable of producing them for profit?
That’s the question as South Korea weighs the odds on plunging into a program for manufacturing the Korean Fighter Experimental — the KFX — with stealth capabilities and the ability to retaliate against North Korean missile and nuclear facilities.
Marc DeVore, a lecturer from the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland, notes the extremes in meetings with experts and defense officials in Seoul while South Korean engineers begin the arduous process of designing the plane at a projected R&D cost of $8 billion. That’s far below the tens of billions of dollars that Lockheed-Martin has spent developing the F35 — about 60 of which South Korea is considering buying for a cool $100 million apiece.
The fact is that manufacturers in only five countries, the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, France, Sweden and Britain, have had the background, skills and expertise to develop, make and market a fighter that can operate effectively and sell enough on global markets to justify the enormous costs at every stage of the process.
DeVore offers a disturbing picture of the perils and pitfalls that have forced others to abandon dreams of producing their own fighter planes over the past 40 or so years.
“There have been 20 distinct attempts at market entry,” he says. While countries ranging from Argentina to Israel to Yugoslavia to India and Canada and even Japan have jettisoned multi-billion-dollar programs, only China “seems to have been a success.” China can produce an imitation of the Russian Sukhoi, more or less the equivalent of the American F15, he believes, but he’s still not sure about its quality and durability.
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