Here is a paper by an aerospace analyst about the future of the ROKAF.

http://www.rusi.org/publications/defencesystems/ref:P442C01F0031E3/

“The Korean Air Force: Strategy for the 21st Century
By Myeong Chin Cho
Mar 2006

Myeong Chin Cho is Director of East Asian Division in ADIA Consultancy GmbH, Berlin, Germany and is the author of Balance of Air Power in East Asia, Restructuring of Korea’s Defence Aerospace Industry, and EU’s Enlargement and Its Impact on Defence Industries.”

He argues the ROKAF has no concrete concept for the KFX and we are not yet capable of developing a fourth-generation aircraft due to limited finance, an insufficient level of required technology and inexperience. The ROK Army has its own big money project called KHP, which may compete for same funds as the KFX and KAI is not even capable of coming up with its own upgrade package for our F-16 fleet despite having produced 140 of them. This is a marked contrast with Singapore Technologies Aerospace, which is offering Falcon ONE upgrade package built around a mission computer developed in-house.

Instead, he proposes we should try to do what China (PL-12 on Su-27/30), Japan (AAM-4 on F-15J), Israel (Python 4/5 and Popeye on F-15 and F-16) and South Africa (A-Darter, R-Darter and Raptor on Cheetah) have done – produce our own weapons and integrate them to our fighters.

Cheers,
Sunho

It looks like two different types of Y-8 are flying here.

ISTR the Sea Harriers were briefly fitted with laser guided bombs in 1994 or 1995 for service over Bosnia.

Anyone have any photos of these?

There is a photo of Lieutenant Nick Richardson checking a Paveway II LGB attached to his Sea Harrier FRS1 in his book “No Escape Zone”.

Sunho

As I quoted one can assume that third world countries don’t use their air power in a professional manner. Hence we can assume that they don’t purchase it in a professional manner, either.
Supersonic fighters with performance like a J-7 are wasted money, short-legged sportcars without any use beyond point-defense interceptors. The F-5 is maybe more versatile (and was specially designed for poor countries), but still does not represent an optimum solution.

But third world leaders like to see their kingdom being equipped with supersonic fighters. So the enemy be fearful. That is doesn’t make sense is another story.

Well I think your verdict on the F-5E is a little too harsh. The F-5E was first introduced in the mid-1970’s and the last example was delivered to the Singapore Air Force in 1989. Seen from today’s perspective the F-5E is hardly an optimum solution but in the 1970’s it was good enough.

With a good RWR the F-5E could have easily evaded bigger and badder adversaries up to the 1990’s but with the advent of AESA radar, which neutralizes almost all RWRs, the F-5E is now just a sitting duck.

Cheers,
Sunho

Any subsonic fighter (A-4 for example) is sufficient to do peacetime patrol tasks. Even if your neighboring 3rd world enemy has supersonic fighter-bombers, it is unlikely that he can make big use of it (see above). A subsonic fighter costs about half to one third of its supersonic conterpart.
Interestingly there is no modern A-4 (or A-7) one the market.

If BAE Systems still can make new Hawk 200s on order, there is at least one subsonic fighter on the market.

Cheers,
Sunho