Seoul Seeks to Revive Stealth Fighter Development Plan
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee has approved a project to develop an indigenous stealth fighter, breathing new life into a plan viewed by many experts as economically and technically nonviable, a military source said Monday.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) reported on the project to Lee last Friday, said the source, asking to remain anonymous.
Under the plan, the state-funded Agency for Defense Development (ADD) will conduct a three-year study on the fighter program codenamed KF-X to decide whether to push for the development and mass-production of stealth fighters or merely to build a prototype for technology experiments, he said.
The ADD will receive financial support of around 100 billion won ($91 million) for preliminary research and development, the source added.
The KF-X project still awaits approval from an ad hoc panel on aerospace policies under the Office of the Prime Minister and Cheong Wa Dae as well as the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.
``Now is the opportune time to develop our own fighter jet given that our country has accumulated enough aircraft technology from the development of advanced trainer jets such as the KT-1 and T-50, over the past years,'' Lee Dae-yeol, head of the ADD's aircraft systems development team told The Korea Times.
``We can't buy foreign fighters forever. We should take this opportunity to not fall behind in fighter developments,'' said Lee.
He said KF-X jets would successfully replace the Air Force's older, second tier F-4E and F-5E aircraft.
The project aims to create a ``fifth-generation'' fighter equipped with the radar-evading stealth technology by 2020 to make it operational with the Air Force and sell more globally, separate from the multi-phase F-X project to purchase 120 ``high-class'' strike fighters from foreign nations.
Operational requirements for the KF-X have not been unveiled but sources say the ADD wants to develop a single-seat, twin-engine jet stealthier than either Dassault's Rafale or the Eurofighter Typhoon but not as stealthy as Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightening II.
Earlier, ADD officials said they wanted foreign defense firms to foot some 30 percent of development costs and were considering forming a consortium between domestic and foreign companies. Foreign defense firms that have shown interest in participating in the program include Lockheed Martin and Boeing of the United States, Saab of Sweden, and the European-consortium Eurofighter.
Officials from DAPA and ADD said that despite difficulties, the KF-X program will help develop or acquire state-of-the-art aircraft technology through foreign partnerships.
Late last year, however, the Korea Development Institute, a private think tank, concluded in its feasibility study on the project that the program would cost at least $10 billion but could be expected to reap only $3 billion in economic benefits.
Defense analysts and industry officials home and abroad are also skeptical about the program.
Some of them have suggested that South Korea invest more in developing the T-50 platform to a light-attack version, dubbed the F-50.
``Few countries in the world have succeeded in selling their own fighter aircraft to other nations,'' a researcher of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses said on condition of anonymity. ``Cases in point are Japan, Taiwan and Israel. They were unhappy with the results of their indigenous fighter programs in the end.''
The researcher added there would be little global demand for manned fighters in the future, nor could South Korea compete against the existing stealth fighters of the United States ― the F-22 and F-35.