By Kang Seung-woo
Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) created T-50 International in 2000 to pursue a joint marketing program for the T-50 Golden Eagle internationally, targeting the U.S. Air Force (USAF) among its potential customers.
There has been no big breakthrough with the U.S. showing no interest in buying the aircraft that came into being as an offset program to Lockheed’s sale of KF-16s.
The U.S. defense contractor is now trying another joint marketing card as part of its efforts to convince Korea to purchase 60 F-35 Lightning II stealth jets in the F-X III competition.
Lockheed Martin officials were not available for comment.
When President Park Geun-hye visited Washington last month, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson promised to push the T-50 for the USAF trainer procurement project, in which at least 350 aircraft are expected to be ordered to replace aging Northrop T-38 Talons.
As part of an offset program in the KFP, Lockheed delivered technology to KAI that allowed the development of the nation’s first indigenous supersonic aircraft.
As a result, the T-50 was completed over nine years in collaboration with the defense giant on a budget of 2 trillion won.
Lockheed Martin paid some $300 million of the development costs, approximately 17 percent of the total. If KAI exports the T-50, the U.S. firm will receive royalty payments on each plane sold.
Despite the promotion pledge, history is not on the Bethesda, Md.-based company’s side in terms of the program.
In the past four years, KAI suffered a series of setbacks in exporting the plane to Singapore and Israel despite support from Lockheed. The KAI made an independent bid to sell T-50s to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which also was unsuccessful.
In addition, KAI, based in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, singlehandedly employed a marketing program and struck its first export contract with Indonesia in 2011 — selling 16 T-50 jets for about $400 million — raising questions over Lockheed’s effectiveness in the marketing program.
In addition, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said the T-50 promotion is a contractual duty for Lockheed as a co-developer.
“If the aircraft is chosen, the Golden Eagle will be labeled as the Lockheed Martin T-50 in the United States,” DAPA spokesman Baek Youn-hyeong said last week.
In the U.S. T-X program, Italian aerospace company Alenia Aermacchi’s M-346, the British single-engine jet trainer Hawk from BAE Systems and the T-50 are expected to be in competition.
Lockheed Martin is currently bidding to secure the 8.3 trillion won contract against Boeing, which hopes to sell its under-development F-15 Silent Eagle, and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), touting its Eurofighter Tranche 3 Typhoon.
The bidding, which started Tuesday, is expected to last 11 days, and once completed, DAPA will assess the three before making a final decision in a meeting slated for the end of this month.