President Park Geun-hye replaced senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs Ju Chul-ki, Monday, amid mounting calls for her top security aides to take responsibility for failing to obtain four key technologies related to F-35 stealth fighters from the United States.
Ju was replaced with Kim Kyou-hyon, the deputy chief of the National Security Office (NSO), according to Cheong Wa Dae.
The reshuffle has been construed as Park censuring the secretary over the failure to receive the core technologies from the U.S., which dealt a serious setback to the nation's 8.5 trillion won KF-X project to develop indigenous fighter jets by 2025.
Four years ago, at the 2011 instalment of the Seoul Air Show, South Korean officials predicted that 2013 would see the start of development for the country’s long-planned indigenous KFX fighter aircraft. A first flight was likely in 2015, and full scale production in 2021. Seoul would have a 60% share in the project, while prospective partners Indonesia and Turkey would each have 20%. They would provide funds and a degree of participation, but there was no question that Seoul would sit in the cockpit.
The aircraft envisaged was ambitious, far more advanced than any aircraft developed in South Korea. It would vault South Korea from a second tier player in the global aerospace supply chain to a leading systems integrator. Seoul’s Defense Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) gave a long list of requirements: fly-by-wire flight controls, hands-on-throttle-and-stick pilot controls, a helmet-mounted display and a night vision imaging system. Low-observable technologies would reduce the jet’s radar cross section (RCS). KFX would have an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and an infrared search and track (IRST) sensor.
As is all too common in the world of fighter development, things have not gone to plan. Turkey ended up not joining KFX, deciding instead to build its own indigenous fighter, the TFX. By the 2013 Seoul Air Show, officials were still in talks with various suppliers, but no prototype was on the drawing board. Indeed, it was still some way from deciding whether Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), the country’s leading airframer, or KAL-ASD, a unit of Korean Air, would develop KFX.
Perhaps the single biggest element in the delays was Seoul’s torturous F-X III fighter competition, the technology transfer offsets of which are earmarked for KFX work. Contenders for the bitterly-fought F-X III deal included the Lockheed Martin F-35, Boeing’s proposed F-15 Silent Eagle, and the Eurofighter Typhoon. Eurofighter was always deemed an outsider for the competition, but in a nod to KFX, it apparently offered an extremely lucrative technology transfer package. In 2013, after last minute scare from the F-15SE, the F-35 emerged as the winner of F-X III, although Seoul cut the airframe requirement from 60 to 40 examples, citing budgetary issues.
National Security Office (NSO) chief Kim Kwan-jin may face an investigation over his role in the controversial decision to buy F-35 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin.
Kim headed a panel that selected F-35s over Boeing's F15-SEs as a defense minister in March last year.
The office of the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs began its probe last week amid growing allegations that the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) lied about the terms of the contract in order to help Lockheed win the bid.
The agency admitted that it failed to receive four core F-35-related technologies from Lockheed, and this is expected to cause a setback for the nation's 8.5 trillion won KF-X project to develop indigenous fighter jets by 2025.
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.
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has been selected as the preferred bidder in South Korea’s proposed KFX fighter programme to build an indigenous fighter.
In an email to Flightglobal, KAI confirmed that Seoul’s Defense Acquisition Procurement Agency (DAPA) has awarded it preferred bidding status, with Lockheed Martin tapped as the foreign technical assistance company (TAC).
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The KFX is envisaged as a two-engined fighter that is more advanced than the Lockheed Martin F-16, but not up to the standard of types such as the F-35 Lightning II. It will replace obsolescent types in the Korean air force’s inventory, namely the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom and Northrop F-5.
The Indonesian government has a 20% share in the programme. Seoul is expected to order 120 examples of the KFX, and Indonesia 80.
Korean Air and European aerospace giant Airbus have signed an agreement to jointly bid for an $8 billion jet fighter project, an airline spokesman said Sunday, pitting them against a team comprised of Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries.
The project is designed to develop and produce 120 fighter jets of a new "indigenous" type to replace the country's aging fleet of F-4s and F-5s.
"We've signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus," a Korean Air spokesman told AFP.
One of the conditions of the bid is that local enterprises tie up with foreign companies to secure technological assistance, according to Seoul's Yonhap news agency.
The pair will compete with Korea Aerospace Industries, which has teamed up with America's Lockheed Martin.
South Korea's Defence Acquisition Program Administration plans to announce the final winner in July.
The Korean Air/Airbus alliance would have to present a totally new design as the Eurofighter Typhoon's delta wings do not fit South Korea's specifications, an analyst said.
"Eurofighter does not fit the swept-wing concept favored by South Korea," Lee Il-Woo of Korea Defence Network told AFP.
Korean Air currently operates aircraft maintenance workshops for both the South Korean and US air force and has many years of experience in manufacturing wings for Boeing.
"Korean Air would play a role as a manufacturer with technological assistance from Airbus", Lee said.
The mega-competition to build South Korea's indigenous fighter jet, dubbed KF-X, kicked off on Feb. 9. But the first round of bidding in the country's largest-ever arms procurement deal failed due to an insufficient number of participants.
Only the team of Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) and Lockheed Martin submitted a proposal for the KF-X program by the deadline, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). Under the local procurement rules, all defense development and manufacturing programs must have at least two bidders.
The second round of bidding, which will close Feb. 24, is expected to be a two-way race as Korean Air vows to lodge its bid in collaboration with Airbus Defence and Space.
Without a competitor, the KAI-Lockheed team would win the 8.6 trillion won (US $7.8 billion) project for developing an F-16 class twin-engine fighter aircraft over the next eight years.
About 120 fighters are scheduled to be produced after 2023 to replace aging F-4s and F-5s. Indonesia will provide 20 percent of the development costs, with a domestic company covering 20 percent, and the government supporting the rest.
"We're preparing to submit a proposal by the deadline of the second round of bidding, in collaboration with Airbus Defence and Space," a Korean Air spokesman said, adding his company signed an agreement with the European defense firm for the KF-X partnership.
Airbus and Boeing are jointly attempting to unseat Lockheed Martin from South Korea’s KF-X indigenous fighter program, offering technology from Europe that could not be supplied from U.S. sources, industry officials say.
With Korean Airlines as the local partner, the pair are likely to be proposing the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet as a base design for the KF-X.
The defense ministry’s procurement office, the Defense Acquisition Program Agency (DAPA), issued a request for proposals for KF-X development on Dec. 23.
The Boeing-Airbus KF-X proposal should be an economical alternative to a fighter design of the defense ministry’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD) that Korea Aerospace Industries has been expected to build with technical assistance from Lockheed Martin.
The U.S. limits the technology that its companies can transfer abroad. South Korea lacks technology in many fields, such as active, electronically scanning radar. But Airbus, as an airframe company, is probably involved in the Boeing bid as a supplier of stealth know-how that the U.S. company is not authorized to provide.
South Korea has again declined to launch full-scale development of the proposed KF-X indigenous fighter, with the finance ministry recommending against a launch and parliament failing to fund one.
link. (paywall)
Jakarta has reaffirmed its commitment to partnering with Seoul on the KFX indigenous fighter programme.
In a statement, Indonesia’s defence ministry says that six prototypes will be developed, of which one will be given to Indonesia for flight tests. In addition, it reiterates the role of Indonesian personnel in the programme, and that a final assembly line will eventually be located in Indonesia.
The statement follows the recent signing of an agreement between Jakarta and Seoul, which sets the stage for the KFX to move into the “engineering and manufacturing phase” – the second of the programme’s three phases.
The statement says the first phase, which covered technology development, was completed in December 2012. The third and final phase of the programme covers the development of production capabilities.
In return for obtaining 40 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, South Korea will receive technologies related to its long-planned KFX indigenous fighter programme.
Following Lockheed’s announcement on 24 September that Seoul was on the verge of signing an order for 40 F-35s, state news agencyYonhapquoted a spokesman from South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) as saying that the F-35 technologies will play a key role in KFX.
Under the F-35 deal – which will cover deliveries to run between 2018 and 2021 – Lockheed will transfer key fighter technologies from “17 sectors”, he says.
The DAPA spokesman adds that Seoul will build 120 KFX aircraft for deployment from 2025. South Korean officials indicate the fighter will be a twin-engined design that is more capable than advanced versions of the Lockheed F-16, but less capable than leading Western fighters such as the F-35.
Technology transfer was a major consideration in Seoul’s pursuit of a replacement for its McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Northrop F-5s under its F-X III requirement, which was ultimately won by the F-35.
Industry sources say Lockheed, Boeing and Eurofighter all offered attractive technology transfer packages during the contest. Boeing offered an upgraded version of its F-15E, dubbed the Silent Eagle, while Eurofighter offered the Typhoon.
At last year’s Seoul lnternational Aerospace & Defense Exhibition, Korea Aerospace Industries, which will likely build the new jet, displayed two models of the KFX, both of which bore low-observable characteristics reminiscent of the F-35.
The aircraft will be developed with help from Indonesia, which is a 20% partner in the programme.
South Korea has approved a deal to acquire 40 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for about KRW7.3 trillion (USD7.1 billion).
The Defense Acquisition Program Executive Committee headed by Minister of National Defense Han Min-gu approved the signing of a letter of offer and acceptance at a meeting in Seoul on 24 September.
Deliveries to South Korea of the F-35A - the conventional take-off and landing variant - will start in 2018, according to a statement by Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, Program Executive Officer for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office.
"[South] Korea becomes the third Foreign Military Sales customer joining Israel, Japan, and our eight partner nations on the programme," Lt Gen Bogdan added. "This is a good day for the F-35 programme and we look forward to working with the Republic of Korea government in executing its F-35 programme."
The F-35A will fulfil the Republic of Korea Air Force's (RoKAF's) FX-III requirement, under which Seoul originally planned to buy 60 aircraft to replace 1970s-era McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom IIs. The original estimate quoted for 60 F-35As was USD10.8 billion, one reason why the RoKAF approved a reduced fleet of 40 aircraft.
General Electric (GE) intends bidding to supply engines to power the Republic of Korea Air Force's (RoKAF's) proposed KFX indigenous fighter aircraft.
The company said on 21 August that if selected to participate in the KFX programme, it would build the powerplants in collaboration with local industry, ensuring more than half the KFX engine components were made and assembled in South Korea.
According to South Korean media reports, the government will issue a tender to continue the full development of the aircraft before the end of 2014, with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) likely to be selected to lead the programme in collaboration with foreign system developers.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed a plan on Friday for the country to design its own mid-level fighter jet, which a state think tank estimated will cost up to 8.5 trillion won ($8.24 billion) to develop.
Dubbed the KF-X programme, the fighter jet is expected to be built by the country's sole jet builder, Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI), after being co-developed with Lockheed Martin Corp, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The Joint Chiefs said in a statement that they had endorsed a twin-engine fighter jet to be developed for delivery starting in 2025.
South Korea is considering leasing second-hand F-16 fighter jets from the United States to fill a potential vacuum in its air power from delays in aircraft acquisition and development, a senior Air Force official here said Wednesday.
Seoul recently confirmed a plan to buy 40 F-35s by Lockheed Martin from 2018-21, scaling down from the initial program for 60 advanced combat aircraft, while pushing to develop midlevel fighter jets with a goal of deploying them between 2023 and 2025.
The move, however, falls short of replacing the aging fleet of 160 F-4s and F-5s, which are expected to be phased out in the next five years.
By 2019, about 60 FA-50 light fighter jets and the early batch of F-35s will be added to the existing fleet, which leaves about 80 jets falling short of the appropriate number of jets, according to the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA).
"The Air Force is considering leasing used combat jets as part of ways to provide the interim defense capability because replacement of aging F-4s and F-5s wouldn't take place in a timely manner," a senior Air Force official said, asking for anonymity. "As midlevel combat jets are mostly in shortage, the Air Force is considering renting 16 to 20 used F-16s from the U.S. Air Force."
A decadelong effort by South Korea to develop its own fighter aircraft has finally received approval, yet the feasibility of the ambitious indigenous project, dubbed KF-X, is still in debate.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced Jan. 5 that it would begin the KF-X development with the allocation of 20 billion won (US $19 million). Seoul aims to produce 120 KF-X jets between 2023 and 2030, the agency said.
But the announcement sparked a dispute over key specifications for the KF-X, especially over the design of the future jet.
The state-funded Agency for Defense Development (ADD) has long studied a twin-engine concept, either of the C103 design that looks somewhat like the F-35 or the C203 design following the European approach and using forward canards in a stealth-shaped airframe.
Both of the twin-engine platforms would be powered by two 18,000-pound engines, ADD officials said.
Korea Aerospace Industries, on the other hand, prefers a single-engine concept, dubbed C501, which is to be built based on the FA-50, a light attack aircraft version of the T-50 supersonic trainer jet co-produced by Lockheed Martin.
The C501, powered by a 29,000-pound engine, is designed to be fitted with a limited low-observable configuration and advanced avionics.
“A single-engine concept is in pursuance of both affordability and combat performance, based on the advanced FA-50 technologies,” said Lee Myung-hwa, Korea Aerospace Industries spokesman.
