KAI to export 60 trainer jets to UAE
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/03/03/200503030018.asp
Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd., Korea’s sole aircraft maker, plans to export 60 locally developed supersonic trainer jets to the United Arab Emirates by 2009, officials said yesterday.
The countries will sign a $2 billion contract for the T-50 jets by December at the latest, said Kim Jun-myung, a spokesman at the state-run Korea Aerospace Industries, the manufacturer of the plane.
“The UAE will be the first foreign buyer of T-50s,” Kim said, adding that KAI is also pushing to export T-50s to Poland, Greece and Israel.
If KAI closes the deal to sell its T-50 trainer jets, Korea would become the world’s sixth-largest exporter of supersonic trainers.
The T-50, dubbed Golden Eagle, is the world’s only supersonic jet trainer in development by KAI in a technology partnership with Lockheed Martin Co.
The plane is equipped with a range of advanced systems aimed at training pilots in both current and next-generation combat aircraft.
KAI has built T-50s since 1997 and will deliver 94 T-50s to Korea’s air force by 2011, starting from October this year.
Separately, KAI is set to sign a deal in March to sell five trainer aircraft to Indonesia. The company expects to win orders worth 2.5 trillion won ($2.49 billion) in 2005.
Korea Aerospace Industries is adjusting the deal’s price tag after working out most of the other terms with the UAE, KAI Cheif Executive Officer Jung Hae-joo said during an interview yesterday.
Jung said UAE’s air force chief Khalid Bin Abdullah Mobarak Al Buainnain “expressed satisfaction in public” about T-50s when he visited KAI’s assembly plant last month.
Korea’s air force has offered to help the UAE train pilots and mechanics if the Middle Eastern country buys the jets.
KAI was launched in 1999 after the aerospace affiliates of Korea’s three main conglomerates – Samsung, Daewoo and Hyundai – merged under government-led industry restructuring.
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March 7, 2005 at 8:57 pm