2 FA-50PHs now airborne

From the Philippine News Agency (Nov 28): 2 FA-50PHs now airborne

The two FA-50PHs have finally took off from Sacheon, South Korea for its flight to Clark Air Base, Angeles City Pampanga Friday.

This was announced by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in its Facebook page.

Sacheon 1,438 miles (2,330 kilometers) from Clark Air Base, Pampanga.

The Philippine Air Force earlier said the two jet aircraft will be making a refueling stop at an undisclosed location before making the final run for the Philippines.

The two FA-50PHs are expected to touchdown at Clark Air Base, 10 a.m. Saturday.

The two FA-50PHs were supposed to arrive this Friday but inclement weather over South Korea forced the reschedule to Nov. 28.

The DND has signed a 12-plane contract worth Php18.9 billion with KAI last March 2014.

The F/A-50 (the other designation for the FA-50PH) has a top speed of Mach 1.5 (990 miles per hour) 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.

It 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.

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 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 kN (17,700 lbf) of thrust with afterburner.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=831966