FA-50PHs gave impressive showing during 'Balikatan' exercises -- PAF spokesperson

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 17): FA-50PHs gave impressive showing during 'Balikatan' exercises -- PAF spokesperson

Seeing "Balikatan" action for the first time, the country's newly-acquired South Korean-made FA-50PH "Fighting Eagle" light-interim fighter aircraft gave an impressive showing during the aerial phase of the annual military maneuvers aside from impressing American pilots.

This was disclosed by Philippine Air Force (PAF) spokesperson Col. Araus Roberto Musico in a message to the PNA Saturday.

"The Americans (were) impressed. The combined flight exercise involved interception simulation where our FA-50 jets flew against other fighter jets acting as aggressors (two Hawker Hunters served that part) because of sophisticated navigation and detection equipment, our FA-50s were able to easily spot and intercept the aggressors with the assistance of AWACS (airborne warning and control system) serving as airborne controllers," he added.

This year's "Balikatan" exercises formally started April 4 and ended on April 15.

The aerial phase of the maneuvers took place during "Balikatan's" first week.

"Generally, the Americans were surprised with the aircraft's performance, even going further to say that it is similar to a lesser degree than the F-16 (General Dynamics F-16 'Fighting Falcon')," Musico added.

The Philippines has a 12 FA-50PH order from Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) worth PHP18.9 billion.

The first two units arrived last Nov. 28 with the remaining 10 to be delivered during 2016 and 2017.

The FA-50PHs 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.

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.

It's 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=877258