Lockheed Martin, Korea Aerospace Sign Teaming Agreement on T-50 Trainer

Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) signed a teaming agreement Monday for future T-50 opportunities, the newest partnership in the decades-long relationship between the companies.

The T-50 program was originally developed by KAI in partnership with Lockheed Martin, and took its maiden flight in 2002 and its first production flight in 2005. Since then, 208 have been produced with an additional 28 on order across a number of aerobatic and combat variants including the T-50A, T-50B, TA-50, and FA-50.

Aimee Burnett, vice president, Integrated Fighter Group Business Development at Lockheed Martin said the T-50 is an aircraft program that reduces the learning curve for new pilots and gets them flying operational sorties faster – even in fifth-generation aircraft like the F-35. That’s important as air forces around the world need to get their pilots up to speed faster than ever before, whether that’s to fill a gap in personnel or due to increased frequency of combat missions.

The program has reduced the number of required flights for Korean pilots learning in the KF-16 to only nine sorties. Feedback from many of the 2,500 pilots who have been trained in the T-50 across 3,750 test flights says it’s easy to fly and offers controls similar to other Lockheed Martin aircraft like the F-16 and F-35. This allows student pilots to focus their airmanship skills on improved aero performance, digital flight controls and next-generation air traffic management systems.

Additionally, a ground-based training system contains an array of innovative technologies to provide options for training in a simulation environment.