Against the Juchis and "Communists"
South Korea's situation is far from the most pleasant. A strange northern neighbor, which, apparently, has quite combat-ready nuclear weapons, as well as a geographically close quasi-communist China, which is heading towards dominance throughout the world faster than the United States did in its time. Then there is Japan and the long-standing grievances associated with World War II. And a number of other countries in the Asian region have their own problems: they obviously do not care about South Korea. At least, they definitely do not intend to defend it.
In this regard, it is not at all surprising that Koreans watched the American elections even more actively than the citizens of the United States themselves. After all, their future is at stake: America is the only real ally who can really help.
In addition to the States, the Republic of Korea can rely on its army, primarily the Air Force. It must be said that they are quite "colorful" in their composition. Along with the relatively modern F-16 and F-15 fighters, the Koreans have the frankly old F-5 Tiger II and F-4 Phantom II. As well as training and combat training vehicles, which will not make much of the weather. By the way, the former want to completely decommission them by 2030, and the Phantoms - by 2024.
The backbone of the South Korean Air Force is F-16C / D fighters - more than 150 aircraft in total. And soon this basis will be the latest F-35A. Recall that Korea plans to receive 60 of these fighters in total. At the moment, the Koreans have received about ten of these machines. Overall, the F-35s will seriously enhance the capabilities of the Korean Air Force, taking it to a new level. In which the threat from the fourth generation fighters will be very conditional in many respects: at least if the Korean pilots do not "climb" into close maneuvering combat. Incidentally, there have been almost no cases of the latter in recent decades.
Running with obstacles
It is all the more surprising that South Korea (now with the assistance of its colleagues from Indonesia) is actively developing its own fighter with the symbol KF-X. The machine is being developed by Korea Aerospace Industries specialists with the assistance of Indonesian Indonesian Aerospace.
And here's what is remarkable. The project was first announced by the ex-President of South Korea Kim Dae Jung back in … 2001. A whole "eternity" has passed since then: this politician has long been dead, as well as Kim Jong Il (he died in 2011). Some countries ceased to exist in fact, while others, let's say, underwent metamorphoses with their borders.
And only one thing remains unchanged - the South Korean fighter, which they wanted to get by 2020, as it was not, and is not present. As part of the program, so far the KF-X has not been built a single pre-production sample, prototype or even a technology demonstrator.
If you take a closer look at the program, then some points begin to become clear. Recall that as part of the initial operational requirements for the KF-X, it was envisaged to create a single-seat fighter with two engines and the use of stealth technology. In terms of its dimensions, the car was supposed to be larger than the French Dassault Rafale and the pan-European Eurofighter Typhoon, but smaller than the F-22 and F-35.
In 2010, South Korea and Indonesia agreed to work together on the program. However, in March 2013, the Ministry of Defense of South Korea and Indonesia postponed the implementation of a joint project to develop the KF-X / IF-X fighter for a year and a half. In July 2013, the Indonesian Ministry of Defense announced that it intends to continue developing a promising fighter on its own - something almost incredible given the lack of experience in creating fighters from the Indonesians.
The next unexpected turn was the presentation in November 2013 by Korean Aerospace Industries of a model of a single-engine version of a promising fighter. The logic was something like this: Korea already has a single-engine training FA-50 Golden Eagle of its own design, so why not use this experience to create a new fighter?
Of course, the “flying desk” and multipurpose stealth are fundamentally different aircraft that require different technical solutions. They realized this soon in South Korea, after which they forgot about the single-engine version, like about a bad dream. However, this did not diminish the number of questions.
A plus or a minus 3?
On October 2, 2019, Defense-aerospace reported that the Office of Defense Procurement Programs of South Korea issued Korean Aerospace Industries permission to manufacture the first flight model of the promising KF-X fighter. The assembly of the car was supposed to begin before the end of October. By the way, shortly thereafter, a full-size model of a promising fighter was presented at the ADEX arms exhibition in Seoul.
He, in general, confirms the basic conceptual solutions. From the point of view of aerodynamic layout, it is almost a complete "copy" of the F-22. However, as noted above, the car will be significantly smaller than its overseas counterpart. We are talking about a fighter with two General Electric F414 engines. It is 16.9 meters long and has a wingspan of 11.2 meters. The maximum take-off weight of the fighter will be 25.4 tons. The aircraft will be able to fly at speeds up to Mach 1, 8-1, 9. The promising fighter will receive 10 points of attachment for missiles, bombs and various outboard containers. It is planned to create both single and double versions.
The most interesting thing is that the Korean "stealth" in fact will not be subtle. At least at the first stage. The Block I version will not have internal weapons bays: this, by the way, is clearly seen in the example of the shown layout. However, Korean Aerospace Industries are optimistic and believe that in a later version of the vehicle, in order to maintain radar stealth, the main armament will be able to be placed inside.
The relatively small fuselage, as well as the location of the landing gear and air intakes, allow two assumptions. Either a) the internal bays for weapons will be very small (much smaller than on the F-22 and F-35), or b) they will not be at all. By the way, in the images presented, the production vehicle carries four MBDA Meteor missiles, partially recessed into the fuselage. Earlier, a similar solution was used by European engineers when developing the Eurofighter Typhoon. By the way, on November 22, 2019, the French edition of La Tribune in the material "MBDA monte à bord de l'avion de combat sud-coréen, le KF-X" wrote that the Korean Ministry of Defense chose the MBDA Meteor missile to equip the KF-X.
The Koreans want to develop a new fighter in 2026, but taking into account the difficulties inherent in the creation of modern technology, this period can be mentally postponed to 2030 or even later.
And here a completely natural question arises. Was it worth it at all for the South Koreans to invest in this project in order to actually get their own Eurofighter by 2030? Given that the Europeans themselves will by that time come close to re-equipping their Air Force with a sixth-generation NGF (Next Generation Fighter) fighter, created as part of the large-scale FCAS (Future Combat Air System) program. The same is probably true for the US with its F / A-XX program. Well, China will have a whole fleet of fifth-generation Chengdu J-20 fighters, and perhaps even bring to mind its fellow J-31 (but in general, China is quite actively talking about the sixth generation).
It turns out that the South Koreans can get an aircraft that is outdated at the beginning of development. At the same time, the experience gained during its development can hardly be applied in other areas - by that time, aircraft manufacturers in the United States, Europe and China can make more than one revolution.
In a broader sense, the KF-X story once again shows that the development of modern fighters has become so complex, risky and expensive that only world superpowers or a number of powerful countries of the world united in the framework of the program can win on this path. For understandable (primarily political) reasons, not everyone and not always succeed in doing this.
