The F/A-50 "Golden Eagle" jet fighter, which the Philippines is acquiring from South Korea, will greatly boost the capability of the military to defend the country's aerial domains, Philippine Air Force (PAF) spokesman Col. Ernesto Miguel Okol said Friday.
"It will greatly increase our capability to defend the country," he added.
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The country has allotted P18-billion to acquire 12 units of these 1.5 Mach capable jet aircraft.
Department of National Defense (DND) spokesman Dr. Peter Paul Galvez earlier said that the acquisition of the F/A-50s will help Philippine Air Force (PAF) pilots develop their "air command maneuvering" (ACM) skills.
The latter refers to the capability to detect, track and maneuver into position necessary to destroy hostile aircraft intruding in the country's airspace.
"The F/A-50 (once officially in the PAF inventory) will help our pilots regain their ACM skills. The aircraft is very ideal for this training as it is modeled very closely in with (General Dynamics) F-16 'Fighting Falcon', one of the most successful jet fighter designs in the world," he said.
ACM skills of Filipino fighter pilots have been seriously eroded with the retirement of the PAF's Northrop F-5 "Tiger" fleet sometimes in 2005.
Galvez said the F/A-50 will also give Filipino pilots the necessary "fast mover" experience needed once the PAF acquires its real modern fighter aircraft.
"The F/A-50 will be the PAF's interim fighter jet aircraft for the moment and it will teach our pilots the skills needed in piloting high performance jet aircraft," he stressed.
The F/A-50 is also known as the TA-50.
The F/A-50 design is largely derived from the F-16 "Fighting Falcon", and they have many similarities: use of a single engine, speed, size, cost, and the range of weapons.
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)'s previous engineering experience in license-producing the KF-16 was a starting point for the development of the F/A-50.
The aircraft can carry two pilots in tandem seating. The high-mounted canopy developed by Hankuk Fiber is applied with stretched acrylic, providing the pilots with good visibility, and has been tested to offer the canopy with ballistic protection against four-pound objects impacting at 400 knots.
The altitude limit is 14,600 meters (48,000 feet), and airframe is designed to last 8,000 hours of service.
There are seven internal fuel tanks with capacity of 2,655 liters (701 gallons), five in the fuselage and two in the wings.
An additional 1,710 liters (452 gallons) of fuel can be carried in the three external fuel tanks.
Trainer variants have a paint scheme of white and red, and aerobatic variants white, black, and yellow.
The F/A-50 "Golden Eagle" uses a single General Electric F404-102 turbofan engine license-produced by Samsung Techwin, upgraded with a full authority digital engine control system jointly developed by General Electric and KAI.
The engine consists of three-staged fans, seven axial stage arrangement, and an afterburner.
The aircraft has a maximum speed of Mach 1.4-1.5.
Its engine produces a maximum of 78.7 kN (17,700 lbf) of thrust with afterburner.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=577700
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