Long last the horizon 2 budget is officially approved.

The total budget is 5.46 billion USD.

The navy is said to be getting 1.4 billion USD.

Looks like the air force got its 2.73 billion USD request after all.

– Surface Attack Aircraft (SAA) / Lead Fighter Trainer Aircraft (LFTA). This is confirmed to be additional 12 FA-50s

– Multi-Role Fighter (MRF) Aircraft. 12 units. Gripens? Tejas? F-16s?

Mpas, attack helis, medium helis (rumored to be the surion) still to be decided.

Previously belgium has blocked arms sales to the philippines, so no fn herstal goods for them.

Now he is bringing in usa into this. Most western aircraft have us made parts in them. Even helicopters like the AW139, which is an ideal alternative to the 412epi’s.

So what is there with minimal or no canadian or us parts?

Helicopters
– Airbus H215M (made in romania)
– kamov ka-62
– Avicopter AC352 (Airbus H125 with chinese WZ-16 engines)

Medium weight fighters
– MiG-35
– Rafale

Maritime patrol aircraft
??

“There is no F-50 because they concluded that modifying the airframe to remove the second seat does not give a major performance difference compared to just leaving it in place”.

I don’t know where you got this Alexz..but please go to Korean sites..go to KAI sites..and you’ll learn that F-50 is much more than just removing the second seat from T-50 airframe. F-50 is completely new airframe eventough it’s derived from T-50 design..but “it’s not using” T-50 airframe. While FA-50 “is using” T-50 airframe. F-50 is designed from on set as Fighter with Fighter airframe. FA-50 is design as Light Fighter using existing LIFT Airframe.

I frequent korean sites. In the begining, it was planned to have 2 separate types, A-50 and single seater F-50 with more advanced radar (elta elm-2032) and datalink. When later it is decided that they wanted a stealthy medium fighter in the KF-X, the A-50 and F-50 is combined into FA-50.

The T-50 airframe does not have the limitation of most trainers like for example the hawk airframe to be used for fighter tasks. It already has the radome designed to fit a decent radar, so no major structural changes needed to upgrade it from training to fighter tasks. The hawk for example, needs a new front section designed to fit the apg-66 radar, as the 2 seater nose is too small. Even the M-346FA has this issue of small nose, going for a new small radar design for it instead of the high cost of redesigning the front section for a bigger nose. So in FA-50 case, there is little benefit to redesign the front end for a single seat when the existing design has the space for a decent radar.

I seriously doubt that the Philippines conceives of the FA-50 as a potential fighter, given their most likely opponent and its equipment- the PLAAF. Anyway, claiming outright that it qualifies as a legitimate fighter is almost like claiming that the BAe Hawk is one.

Philippines is not. They already have the FA-50 as their SAA/LIFT platform, and they need something with a big performance delta compared to their FA-50 for their MRF requirement. What i am saying is that they already have the FA-50, why would they need to go for another lightweight fighter, whether it is the FC-1, Tejas or Gripen C, as even if they are better than the FA-50, the overall differences is small. But a lot of gripen fans are annoyed by that statement.