PHL fighter jet negotiations with South Korea completed

From the Philippine News Agency (Feb 21): PHL fighter jet negotiations with South Korea completed

The Philippines completed its P18.9 billion fighter jet negotiations with South Korea, the Department of National Defense (DND) announced on Friday.

This involves delivery of 12 Korean Aerospace Industry (KAI) F/A-50 "Golden Eagle" jet aircraft which the country's intends to use as a interim jet fighter.

With the successful conclusion of the negotiations, the next step is the signing of the contract, DND undersecretary Fernando Manalo said.

He added that he expects the contract to be signed by March 15 or 18.

Once this is done, delivery of the first batch of the F/A-50 will be done within 18 months time.

"Once first aircraft is delivered, we can truly state that the Philippines Air Force has truly returned to the supersonic age," Manalo said in Filipino.

The F/A-50 has a top speed of Mach 1.5 or one and half times the speed of sound and is capable of being fitted air-to-air missiles, including the AIM-9 "Sidewinder" air-to-air and heat-seeking missiles aside from light automatic cannons.

Manalo said that the F/A-50 will act as the country's interim fighter until the Philippines get enough experience of operating fast jet assets and money to fund the acquisition of more capable fighter aircraft.

As this develops, Manalo said that KAI told them that it will acquire USD5. 93 million worth of equipment from the US to install in the Philippines ordered F/A-50s.

He declined to specify these items for security reasons but said these equipment are included in the P18.9 billion contract of the jet aircraft.

Manalo also said that once the contract is signed, the Philippines will give the South Koreans an initial 15 percent of the contract.

Subsequent payments will be made once certain "milestones" are met.

Manalo also said that the DND also agreed to reduce the cost requirements for spares by USD500,000.

Earlier, DND Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the delivery of the jets could start in June 2015.

He added that both parties have reached a compromise on the delivery of spare parts to 60 days.

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.

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 US gallons), five in the fuselage and two in the wings.

An additional 1,710 liters (452 US 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=618624