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| Southeast Asia |
| Skor-Indonesia Begin New Fighter Project |
| 2011-07-17 |
| Indonesia this week made its first concrete step into another joint project, led by South Korea, for the development of a new fighter jet. Defence Ministry Secretary Gen. Rear Marshal Erris Heriyanto confirmed on Monday that the Korean KFX programme – which Jakarta committed itself to in March – was moving forward. A team of 37 Indonesian engineers is set to leave for South Korea within a matter days, he said, to begin work on the concept definition phase, which is due for completion in 2012 to 2013. Indonesia has agreed to meet 20 percent of the estimated $8 billion programme costs and to take 50 of the roughly 250 KFXs that are currently envisaged. Defence Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro reckons Indonesia will have its 50 planes by 2020. More partners may come on board – the Koreans are targeting Turkey in particular – and this could affect cost projections, timetables and production runs. The KFX will not be a 5th-generation aircraft on a par with the Joint Strike Fighter, but more a kind of souped-up F-16. Obviously, that would be far less challenging to develop. Even so, the pieces of the puzzle don’t seem to fit together: the production run is too small; the participants’ expertise is too limited; and the case for developing a new 4.5-generation fighter, rather than simply buying a tried-and-tested jet from the United States or Russia, is unproven. 5th gen fighters have been shown to be too prohibitively expensive to have a large enough production run for most of the world. A 4.5 could be cheap enough and good enough for the foreseeable future, as well as establish a basis for partnerships not involving the west. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 Besides which, the South Koreans are already about 75% there with their new TA-50 aircraft; they just need to upgrade and expand that aircraft to make it an F-16 class fighter. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2011-07-17 19:24 |