Ankara to join KFX?

[Rii]

South Korea's ambitions to produce an indigenous replacement for its ageing F-4s/F-5s got off to a rocky start a few years back amid both technological and financial feasibility hurdles, but recently the latter have been eased on account of Indonesia's decision to buy into the program.

And now it seems that the program may have picked up a third partner: Turkey.

Korea Times

Maj. Gen. Choi Cha-kyu, director general of the aircraft program bureau at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), said during a forum here Tuesday that Ankara is seriously considering participating in the KF-X program to replace its 180 older F-16 aircraft by 2020.

“Turkey’s air force operates about 180 F-16 aircraft, and there will be a requirement to replace the older fighters with newer ones by 2020,” the two-star Air Force general said. “Once on board, Turkey is expected to bear the same amount of development costs as Indonesia.”

Industry sources say Turkey’s participation in the KF-X project could result in a barter deal. Ankara wants Seoul to consider its T-129 helicopter, under development for the Turkish Army, as a candidate for the AH-X heavy attack helicopter acquisition program.

The KF-X program calls for developing an indigenous fighter similar to the latest F-16 by 2022 with financial support from foreign nations or defense companies.

About 120 KF-Xs would be built initially and more than 130 aircraft would be produced additionally after the first-phase models reach operational capability.

Korea will foot 60 percent of the KF-X development costs worth some 5 trillion won ($4.2 billion), with the balance to come from other governments or corporate partners in a “risk sharing” attempt.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed on July 15, Indonesia agreed to bear 20 percent of the bill and buy about 50 KF-X planes when mass production begins.

The first thing to note about KFX is that from a technical perspective it doesn't make a lot of sense, in that there are already a number of aircraft on the market offering the required performance (and with healthy growth potential) at reasonable cost. Best case scenario, the consortium members are going to be spending a lot more money to get a marginally more capable aircraft than they otherwise could've. More likely scenario is that they spend more money to get somewhat less (relative to Rafale F4+ and equiv. platforms as available in ~2020) than they otherwise could've.

No, KFX is clearly a generational investment aimed at furthering the technical-industrial capabilities* of each of the consortium members. And in that light it's interesting to note that South Korea, Turkey and Indonesia are all members of the "Next Eleven" as coined by Goldman Sachs: those nations predicted to be the hardest charging economies of the 21st century behind the BRICs.

Speaking of BRICs, I'm sure a few were shat at the Australian Department of Defence a few months back when Indonesia announced their participation in the project.

As for potential further expansion of KFX ... maybe South Africa? They had an indigenous program a while back which didn't really work out, but as part of a consortium?

* It's interesting to note that even as the rising costs of modern aviation development have forced most European nations to abandon independent military aviation industries, with only France and Sweden still maintaining such, and which even in the United States has necessitated a high degree of consolidation of industry, the total number of global players in the market is actually growing. China is by now almost independent of Russia, India is making significant strides in developing its indigenous capabilities with Tejas Mk. 1 due to enter limited service over the next couple of years. Japan continues to toy with projects like ShinShin. Brazil has made it clear that technology transfer and industry development are non-negotiable components of its FX-2 program, Turkey has a nascent industry which it is evidently looking to grow, and now S.Korea and Indonesia are jumping on board too. Of course, the manned aircraft will be just about dead by the time most of these ambitions come to full fruition.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, why are we still dumping shitloads of money into insanely-expensive manned aircraft? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to unleash a ton of unmanned drones? You can build something like 40 Predators with the money it takes to build a single F-35.

For defensive air superiority, you don't need the latest and greatest aircraft, just the latest and greatest SAMs.

 

[Rii]

Yeah, why are we still dumping shitloads of money into insanely-expensive manned aircraft? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to unleash a ton of unmanned drones? You can build something like 40 Predators with the money it takes to build a single F-35.

Thing is, an unmanned aircraft with the range, payload, kinematic performance and avionics of a modern fighter aircraft isn't going to be much smaller or less expensive than an equivalent manned platform. The only metric which most contemporary UAVs attempt to compete on is range, and it comes at the expense of everything else. I don't think a Predator (for example) actually has any active sensing capability (i.e. radar) whatsoever.

The below image is an extreme example - the Flanker is a monster of an aircraft - but it demonstrates the point quite well:

The inevitable shift to UAVs will change many of the traditional metrics but it's not as simple as removing the pilot from the equation and raking in the savings. And in any case the technology simply isn't up to it yet and probably won't be for another generation.

What we will see more of over the coming decade or two is UAVs operating in concert with manned aircraft. The twin-seat models of Rafale/Eurofighter/Hornet have enjoyed a recent resurgence for that reason: back-seater to handle the UAVs.

For defensive air superiority, you don't need the latest and greatest aircraft, just the latest and greatest SAMs.

SAMs (like most denial technologies) are certainly far more cost-effective than the aircraft they're designed to kill, but - for nations with the resources to field an effective air force at all - they can't replace the manned aircraft, even defensively. Destroying inbound missiles is a last resort, better to destroy the aircraft before they can launch said missiles, the tankers refueling the aircraft and EW/AWACS assets supporting them, or the airfields they're operating from.