F/A-50s to be PHL's most heavily-armed aircraft

From the Philippine News Agency (May 15): F/A-50s to be PHL's most heavily-armed aircraft

The South Korean F/A-50 "Golden Eagle, those sale contract the Department of National Defense (DND) signed last March 28, will be the most heavily-armed jet aircraft of the Philippine Air Force (PAF).

This contract is worth Php 18.9 billion.

The F/A-50, as per technical specifications obtained from the DND, showed that the jet aircraft can carry a total of 10,500lbs of weapons including an internal 20mm internal automatic cannon, two short-ranged air-to-air AIM-9 "Sidewinder" missiles and air-to-surface AGM-65 missiles for close-air support.

A guidance kit called the JDAM (joint direct attack munition) is also installed into the F/A-50, allowing it to convert unguided or "dumb bombs" into all-weather smart munitions.

These bombs are outfitted with an inertial guidance system that is tied to a global positioning system receiver to guide the deployed munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, and to minimize collateral damage.

This is the first ever PAF aircraft to employ such weapons as the Northrop F-5 "Tiger" and Vought F-8 "Crusader" which are the country's first and last supersonic fighters do not have the above-mentioned capabilities.

Both planes are only armed with 20mm cannons, air-to-air missiles and unguided bombs and rockets.

The Philippines retired its F-8 fleet in 1990 due to maintenance costs with the F-5 squadron decommissioned in 2005 due to airframe attrition and difficulty in acquiring spare parts.

Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI)'s F/A-50 has a top speed of Mach 1.5 or one and half times the speed of sound.

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

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 "Fighting 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.

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=643936