KAI Orders FA-50 Aircraft Worth $1 Billion

Korea Aerospace Industries announced today that the company has been concluded a contract to mass producing the FA-50 worth $1 billion from the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

In accordance with the contract, subsequent to the first mass production contract which was signed on 2011, KAI plans to deploy the aircraft (first production portion) for preparing for the actual battle beginning in August and seek its entire force integration until 2016. 

The FA-50 is a light combat aircraft which was developed based on the T-50, a supersonic advanced trainer in order to replace the military's superannuated fighters, like the F-5E/Fs and A-37s. The FA-50 combat aircraft is able to load up to 4.5 tons of weapons including the basic weapons like air-to-air/air-to-surface missiles and machine guns as well as precision guidance bombers such as JDAMs, or joint direct attack munitions and multi-purpose precision guidance CBUs (or cluster bomb units).

Also, the FA-50 fighter, complete with a night vision apparatus, has a mission capability both in the daytime and in the night time and boasts its improved self-protection ability for the aircraft itself. 

“The FA-50 aircraft is excellent in performance compared with the price. Through the operation of the home-grown airplane which is high in terms of operation ratio and is low in terms of maintenance cost, the Korean military's self-reliance defense potential will be doubled," an official at the military said. KAI won the order for the FA-50 PBL, or Performance Based Logistics project in November last year and is in charge of the development and production, stepping forward the subsequent support of the airplane. 

KAI said, "Through the Korean military's operation ability for the actual battle and KAI's thorough logistics support, the confidence in the performance, safety and follow-up ability of the aircraft are further enhanced, which will accelerate the exports of the home-grown airplanes including the FA-50."