Indonesia buys $400M of Korean jets

May 26, 2011
Korea yesterday signed a massive deal with Indonesia to export T-50 trainer jets, the first sale abroad of the country’s supersonic aircraft.

Korea Aerospace Industries agreed with Indonesia’s Defense Ministry to sell 16 T-50 Golden Eagle jets in the $400 million deal. The aircraft will be delivered by the end of 2013, according to the agreement.

Indonesia has been looking to replace its aged fleet of training jets, and Jakarta short-listed the T-50s last year with two other jets from Russia and the Czech Republic. After Korea’s state-run aerospace company was selected as the preferred bidder on April 12, 20 KAI officials in charge of exports have stayed in Indonesia to negotiate the specifics. After 50 days of talks, Indonesia decided on the Korean jets.

The T-50s were jointly developed with U.S.-based Lockheed Martin in a 13-year project that cost 2 trillion won ($1.8 billion).

Yesterday’s deal is seen as a doorway for Korea to export the aircraft to other buyers such as the United States, Israel and Poland. The Lee Myung-bak administration has long strived to make the planes an export industry, but its main obstacle was the jet’s expensive sticker price, roughly $25 million.

A high-profile Indonesian delegation visited Korea in February to discuss defense cooperation, but the trip was marred by an embarrassing break-in at a hotel room of a member of the delegation by Korean agents of some sort. While Seoul denies it, accusations were made that the National Intelligence Service was behind the break-in.

“The successful deal with Indonesia proves the tireless efforts and cooperation among Korea’s government, military and civilian industry,” the Korea Aerospace Industries said. “With this sale, a green light is turned on for Korean arms exports.”

“I am thrilled to conclude the deal ahead of the company’s initial public offering,” said Kim Hong-kyung, president of Korea Aerospace Industries.

Recent media reports said Korea’s jets are in a final round of bidding for a deal with Israel.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2936726

I would say pretty reasonable, considering Jf-17/FC-1 comes a little bit cheaper at around 20mil (rumored). Tejas, with the same engine and radar comes at around 30 mil (rumored). Of course T-50 doesn’t come with ECM, advanced data-links but is good enough for smaller airforces looking for a light, cheap aircraft for air patrol and COIN for replacing their f-4’s and mig-21’s. Small aircraft market is getting too competitive nowadays 🙂

The current 117 or 117M as it is also designated is somewhere in the 14.900-15.200kgf me think.

This is all cosher. Should make it well within its required performance envelope.
It should be enough to say to all teens and Euro-carnards:

“Step aside”😎

Now if it is an additional 15% thrust increase..:eek:

thats more than 17 tonnes already, not bad 😎

.

Just making things up as we go along..are we?

probably intrigued by this : Respect Pak sovereignty, China tells US

BEIJING: China has warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China. Beijing has advised Washington to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and solidarity and this was formally conveyed to the United States at last week’s China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks.

Sources disclosed that China had also agreed to provide Pakistan 50 new JF-17 Thunder multi-role fighter planes for its air force. The Block-58 planes would be produced in Pakistan under a co-production agreement. It is likely that the production of the planes would start in June next year and till then China will complete the supply of 50 JF-17 planes for which an agreement was signed earlier.

The two countries are also in the process of discussing the supply of J-20 Stealth and Xiaolong/FC-1 multi-purpose light fighter aircraft to Pakistan. They are discussing the mode of payment and the number of planes to be provided to Pakistan, the sources said.

Flight-test of Astra fails

DRDO’s Chief Controller (Missiles and Strategic Systems) Avinash Chander said the mission could not be completed as the missile developed a “control-related fault” when a manoeuvre was attempted. “A snag developed during a manoeuvre. The missile lost control after it reached a certain height. A team is analysing the data.”

Btw Astra has a beautiful smokeless plume 🙂

An Anglo-Indian is to be the next Chief of the IAF. Some conspiracy theorists may suggest that this will tend to favour the Typhoon in the competition against the French Rafale !:P

Air Marshal NAK (Charlie) Browne will be the next IAF Chief of Staff.

[url=http://ajaishukla.blogspot.com/]

and as Ajai Shukla says

BTW, Air Marshal Browne was one of the first batch of IAF pilots to be trained on the Jaguar in the UK..here is a picture of him (when he was a Flt Lt.) along with another former IAF Air Chief, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, when they were in Britain.

L to R: – Flt Lt DC Kumaria, Flt Lt SCS Adhikari, Sqn Ldr DDS Kumar, Wg Cdr DR Nadkarni, Sqn Ldr SP Tyagi, Flt Lt NAK Browne, Sqn Ldr M McMahon. Sqn Ldr JS Sisodia is on the ladder.

So if he was from puducherry with a french heritage that would have meant rafale ? or maybe Manmohan Singh was recruited into MI5 when he was at oxford, or is Sonia Gandhi the femme fatale’ sent by NATO to tap into India’s first family ? Conspiracy theorists would believe anything.

Btw “Charlie Brown” ? thats like the cutest nickname :p

M2K upgrade…

Link

Compare with

Does either of the upgrade includes datalinks for Awacs ?

This is not the Cold War where the Soviets tried to out do the West militarily. China wants to out do everyone economically, military capability will grow naturally as a result. Like the Soviets China saves money by not making risky bets on next generation concepts. Unlike them, China will have the largest economy in the world, and keeping up will be a breeze.

China doesn’t need to have the best military gadgets. It only needs to keep up with the best, that being the US. Europe, Russia, Japan, none of them are in the same league in the long run.

Thinking this in terms of an arms race is losing the game before it even started.

Its hard to outdo the combined might of all US allies, economically and militarily even with worlds largest economy. Even more so when these countries can cut down their massive developmental costs with active collaboration.