KFX and F-50

http://www.geocities.com/glescacat

The first three pictures show a concept model of KFX proposed by ADD, South Korea’s national defence lab. It’s a twin engine canard delta design with an internal weapon bay which can take two 1,000lb bombs and two short range AAMs. Key technologies including engine and radar will be of foreign origin.

The other two are F-50, KAI’s privately funded project. KAI proposed this fighter to the ROKAF as a less risky and doable alternative to going directly to KFX.

Basically F-50 is a F414-powered single-seat variant of A-50/T-50. KAI envisages fitting an Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA) radar, whose antenna should be larger than that of APG-67(V)4, by moving the front cockpit back as far as possible to maximize the cross section of forward fuselage where the antenna of the AESA is to be fitted. Avionics suite will be an open-architecture one for ease of integrating new weapons. There are also talks of upgrading ROKAF F-16C/D Block 32s bought under the Peace Bridge I program in the 1980’s with this not-yet-developed avionics suite. KAI’s promotional material shown in the magazine claims F-50 will be more effective than ROKAF F-16C/D Block 52 in air-to-ground missions by using JDAM, which is not integrated to the latter yet.

All photos are from Defense Times.