July 17, 2004 at 3:26 am
We’ve seen Advanced Jet Trainers turned into Light Attack Aircraft, but in this new generation, we have these trainers, notably the Yak-130(Eastern) and the M-346(Western) which are rather capable, have good range, cheap to maintain and buy(around 10-14mn), have advanced electronics in them, maneuverable and etc, I was just wondering, would it be really expensive to develop a single seat version of them, as a Light Multirole Fighter and stick a radar in their nose, something small like the Kopyo-F and that would give them good BVR capability. What does everyone thing of this? I mean an existing Yak-130 costs around 10-12mn, has good payload(3000kg), good number of hardpoints(around 9), is not supersonic entirely, has good range(around 2000kms, twice as bigger than Hawk’s) and can carry wide variety of weapons like KAB-500(Kr & Ls), S-25L Rockets, R-73, Kh-35 AshMs and bunch of other weaponry. A radar like Kopyo-F is even smaller than the original Kopyo yet has much longer range and better capabilities. If the second seat is replaced with more fuel or maybe additional engines are added, you’d have a good Light Weight Fighter for around 15mn, which is VERY sophisticated and above all very cheap to maintain(something that a fighter like FC-1 lacks).