não tem muito a ver com o JXX, mas pode ser um futuro oponente:
SEOUL — South Korea is likely to drop a plan to build its own version of a multi-role stealth fighter in partnership with Western aircraft makers, as the program has been assessed as nonviable both economically and technically, a military source here said.
The Korea Development Institute (KDI), a private economic policy think tank, concluded last month that the fighter development program, codenamed KF-X, would not be affordable based on a months-long study on the economic feasibility of the program, the source said.
The KF-X development would cost at least $10 billion but bring about only $3 billion in economic benefits, making the economics of the aircraft unsustainable, said the source, citing a KDI report commissioned by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), the country’s arms procurement agency.
The study result was reported to the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, he said.
The DAPA asked the KDI to update the report to make it public by March, he added.
DAPA officials, however, said the fate of the KF-X project has not been decided yet, citing arguments by some defense officials and analysts that the KF-X should go on despite its low economic feasibility, to further develop indigenous aircraft technology through joint research and development with foreign partners.
“The KDI report is just a tiny part of decision-making on the KF-X program,” Cmdr. Park Sung-soo of DAPA’s public affairs office said. “A final conclusion on the fate of the KF-X will be made after DAPA reviews all aspects of the program.”
The KF-X aims to produce a fifth-generation warplane suited to network-centric warfare after 2020 to replace outdated F-4Es and F-5Es and to market it globally.
Last November, the state-run Agency for Defense Development unveiled a plan to develop the KF-X fighter in cooperation with Western countries.
The agency said it wanted foreign firms to foot 30 percent of development costs and was considering forming separate consortiums between domestic and foreign companies on a case-by-case basis
Several foreign defense firms, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Electric, Saab and Safran, expressed their interest in the KF-X program, focusing on possible technology transfer and the potential market for the aircraft, ADD officials said.
The ADD aimed to build the KF-X stealthier than either Dassault’s Rafale or Eurofighter’s Typhoon but not as stealthy as the F-35 of Lockheed Martin, they said.
The fighter would be designed as a single-seat, twin-engine aircraft with a total thrust of more than 40,000 pounds, they said, adding the agency had two KF-X concepts, a wing-tail K-100 aircraft configuration and a canard-wing K-200.
Indigenous high-tech weapon systems such as precision-guided bombs, air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles would equip the fighter, while core technology, including aircraft system integration, avionics, fly-by-wire systems and stealth capabilities, would be obtained from partner companies via offset trading or domestic research and development, they said.
However, analysts have questioned the program’s affordability, as well as its overlap with the third phase of the existing F-X fighter acquisition program that is eying the F-35.
Seoul intends to buy 120 advanced combat aircraft under its F-X fighter modernization program.
In 2002, Boeing's F-15K Eagle was selected for the 40-plane, $4.2 billion first phase of the F-X fighter modernization program. The firm is in final price negotiations with the DAPA over the 20-plane, $2.4 billion second phase of F-X.
Seoul plans to open bidding in 2011 and acquire 60 fifth-generation stealth jets, aiming to deploy the planes between 2014 and 2019, according to Air Force officials.
The F-35 is regarded as the viable candidate for the third phase of the F-X program because the only other stealth fighter in the world, the F-22 Raptor, also built by Lockheed, may be out of Seoul's reach financially and legally. U.S. law forbids the export of the F-22, while the F-35 was developed specifically for export.
But if South Korea purchases F-35s for the F-X program, the value of the midclass KF-X fighter acquisition would likely be degraded because South Korea’s Air Force regards the F-35 as a midclass aircraft in terms of mission requirements.
“To be honest, it is very difficult to predict the fate of the KF-X program, as there are lots of question marks as to the level of technology, gestation period, development costs and so on,” said Lee Ju-hyung of the state-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analyses' Center for Weapon System Studies, who participated in the KDI’s feasibility study. “I just want to remind you that the foremost purpose of the program is acquiring state-of-the-art aircraft technology through joint research and cooperation with foreign countries.”
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