Come December this year, the Philippine Air Force (PAF) will
be flying and using two South Korean-made F/A-50 "Fighting Eagle" to
defend the country's airspace.
The fighter jets would be part of the 12 F/A-50 bought for
Php 18.9 billion by the Philippines under a purchase deal with Korean Aerospace
Industries (KAI), signed in March 2013.
The two jet fighters are expected to be delivered by
December while the rest of the 10 F/A-50s by 2016.
"We are looking at the early delivery of two F/A-50s.
They will be combat and mission ready upon their arrival this December,"
Department of National Defense (DND) undersecretary for finance, modernization
and materiel Fernando Manalo said on Monday in an interview with the PNA.
Earlier, Philippine Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. Enrico
Canaya said that the soon-to-be commissioned F/A-50s, with relatively updated
radar systems onboard, would do autonomous air patrols without relying too much
on ground based surveillance systems.
"(The F/A-50s) has its own onboard radar systems so it
can detect (any hostile air threats) while on patrol," he said.
Canaya declined to give the specifics of the F/A-50's radar
systems for security reasons but stressed that it is quite adequate for air
patrol work.
This feature of the South Korean made jet fighter has
greatly boosted the air defense capabilities of the PAF which was greatly
reduced with the decommissioning of its Northrop F-5 "Tiger" jet
fighter squadrons and Vought F-8 "Crusader" fleet, in 2005 and 1988,
respectively.
This was done due to air frame aging and lack of spare parts
to keep the two planes on operational status.
WIth the deactivation of its two premier supersonic jet
fighters, the PAF was forced to convert the SIAI-Marchetti S-211 jet trainers
for an air defense role.
However, the S-211s are ill-suited for air defense work due
to their slow speeds.
The DND earlier said that the radar systems onboard the
F/A-50s was one of the many pluses why the Philippines
The F/A-50 has a top speed of Mach 1.5 or one and a 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.
The F/A-50 will act as the country's interim fighter until
the Philippines
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
An additional 1,710 liters (452 US
Trainer variants have a paint scheme of white and red, and
aerobatic variants white, black, and yellow.
The F/A-50 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 Korean
Aerospace Industries.
The engine consists of three-staged fans, seven axial stage
arrangement, and an afterburner.
Its engine produces a maximum of 78.7 kilonewton (17,700
pound force) of thrust with afterburner.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=740378
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