Republic of the Philippines sends 'love call' to domestically produced KF-21
Entered2024.08.11. 9:02 AM
July 'Request for Provision of Information' sent to KAI... Wide range of combat action makes it possible to contain People's Republic of China
As the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on and the situation in the Middle East deteriorates significantly, the world's defense companies are screaming with joy. After the post-Cold War, countries cut back on arms purchases, and the defense industry experienced a long period of stagnation. However, in recent years, due to the rapidly changing international situation, orders have been flooding in, and major defense companies are piling up work for the next few years. In other words, even if you order a weapon, you will not be able to receive it quickly.
In the case of fighter jets, which require the highest technology among various weapon systems and have a difficult manufacturing process, the waiting period is already seriously long. In the days when there were almost no new orders, if you signed a contract for the purchase of fighter jets and deposited them, they could be shipped within 1~2 years. On the other hand, in recent years, popular models have received their initial orders only after 3~4 years at the earliest, and 6~7 years after the worst. The "catastrophe" of fighter jets has reached a serious level.
It takes 6~7 years to acquire the first batch of fighter jets
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Thanks to the recent craze for acquiring 4.5th generation fighter jets around the world, the highest-selling weapon is the F-16V from Lockheed Martin United States. Lockheed Martin moved F-16 production from Fort Worth, Texas, to Greenville, South Carolina, in 2019. Fort Worth, the company's main site, planned to concentrate on the production of the new F-35 fighter jet, and to set up a separate small production facility for the F-16s, which had only a few left.
When the Greenville plant first went live, it employed only 25 production workers. However, due to the influx of orders, the size of the factory has grown rapidly, and as of July, 700 workers are working on the production of fighter jets. Despite this 28-fold increase in manpower, only two F-16s are produced each month. The company is currently expanding its factory, and by 2026, production is expected to increase to 4 units per month, but as of the end of July, the backlog of orders alone has reached 129 units. At the current pace of producing two fighters per month, it will take more than 64 months from the contract for the fighter to India. In fact, Taiwan, which signed a contract in August 2020 to purchase 66 F-16Vs, has not received a single fighter jet until now, four years later.
There are many countries that want to buy fighter jets, but the volume cannot support them, so of course the price is soaring. The F-16, which cost about 44 billion won when South Korea purchased the KF-16C/D Block 52 fighter jets more than 20 years ago, is now close to $80 million (about 110 billion won) per aircraft. When you buy a fighter jet, you buy not only the airframe, but also logistics support and armament as a package. Therefore, the actual purchase price of a fighter is formed in the range of 1.5~2 times the value of the aircraft. For example, Slovakia recently paid $128 million (about 176 billion won) for the purchase of 14 F-16Vs. Considering that South Korea bought F-35A fighter jets, which perform much better than the F-16, for 185 billion won per unit in 2019, this is a huge price increase.
Despite such a high price, the F-16V is a popular product that cannot be sold. This is because, as the international situation worsens, developing countries that are building up their armaments can afford only a few types of fighter jets. In particular, the F-35 is not a type that can be bought by any country due to the United States government's severe export controls. The Eurofighter Typhoon in Europe or the Rafale in France are much more expensive than the F-16V. In July, Türkiye received a price quote of 10 billion euros (about 15 trillion won) for 40 units, or about 370 billion won per unit. In 2022, the price of Rafale sold to Indonesia was about 263 billion won per unit.
Developing countries looking for cost-effective fourth-generation fighter jets
Sweden is offering the JAS-39E/F "GripenNG", a significant improvement to the existing fourth-generation fighter JAS-39, as a relatively inexpensive alternative, but even this is expensive. The sales price of these fighter jets was $5.4 billion (about 7.4 trillion won) for 36 units based on Brazil contracts in 2015, or 205 billion won per aircraft. Even considering that it is licensed production, if the contract price nine years ago was that much, it is likely to exceed 200 billion won per unit today. This is the reason why the Republic of the Philippines is deeply concerned about acquiring new fighter jets in the face of the recent deepening security threat from People's Republic of China.
The Republic of the Philippines is currently pursuing a project to introduce a new multi-role fighter jet (MRF), which will be operated with 12 South Korean-made FA-50PHs, the main fighter jet. The framework of the MRF is to spend 61.2 billion pesos (about 1.462 trillion won) to acquire 12 new fighter jets. Considering the total cost of the project, the price of the fighter should not exceed 120 billion won per unit. However, the F-16V, which has been mentioned as a strong candidate, has a price of 110 billion won in airframe. If the Republic of the Philippines chooses the F-16V, it will not be able to acquire spare parts and armament at all unless it increases the project budget by more than 1.5 times or reduces the number of units introduced.
The same is true for GripenNG. Initially, the Gripen series was planned to be a low-cost multi-role fighter with a maximum take-off weight of 14 tons. However, in the process of improving its performance by increasing its weight class to the 16.5t-class Gripen NG, the cost increased significantly. In addition, it failed to sell only in Sweden and Brazil, so it failed to achieve economies of scale through mass production. Because of this, the price has risen even more, and now it is comparable to, or rather, more expensive than the F-16V. Although the GripenNG manufacturer and the Sweden government are actively marketing it, the Republic of the Philippines will not be able to purchase enough armaments and parts unless it significantly increases its budget or reduces the volume of its introductions.
At one time, in the Republic of the Philippines, there was also talk of introducing the FA-50 Block 20, an improved version of the Korean-made FA-50, of which 12 are currently in service. The FA-50 Block 20 is small in its 13.6-ton class, but it is equipped with an active electronically scanned phased array (AESA) radar data link system. It is also capable of operating a variety of precision-guided weapons, including the medium-range air-to-air missile "Amram". Based on the recent export price of Poland and Malaysia, it is about 70 billion won per unit, so the price is highly competitive.
However, neither the F-16V, Gripen NG nor the FA-50 Block 20 are a definitive solution to the security threats facing the Republic of the Philippines. The Republic of the Philippines is a country with People's Republic of China in maritime disputes in the South China Sea. With the recent strengthening of United States and security cooperation, it should also serve as a forward base for the US military in the event of a Taiwan emergency. The fighter jets introduced by the Republic of the Philippines must have the same performance as People's Republic of China's 4.5~5th generation fighters. Fundamentally, it is doubtful that the F-16V or GripenNG, which are based on fourth-generation fighters, will be able to compete with stealth fighters such as the People's Republic of China's J-20 and J-31.
KF-21 has excellent stealth performance
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A People's Republic of China Coast Guard vessel, right, fires a water cannon at a Republic of the Philippines supply ship in waters near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (Spratly Islands with People's Republic of China and Republic of the Philippines Kalayan Islands) on March 5 (local time). [Newsis]
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The F-16V and GripenNG are certainly excellent fighters, but they are far from being able to compete with People's Republic of China, which has built military bases on artificial islands throughout the South China Sea and operates aircraft carriers. The disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (People's Republic of China, Spratly Islands, Republic of the Philippines, Kalayan Islands) are more than 700 kilometers in a straight line from Basa Air Base in Luzon, a key stronghold for the Republic of the Philippines. It also has to fly more than 300 kilometers from Antonio Bautista Air Base on the nearby island of Palawan. In such an operational environment, where it is necessary to fly far out to sea in case of emergency, medium-sized and higher weight classes are preferred than small, and twin-engine fighters are preferred to single-engine fighters. This is because the smaller the fighter, the less fuel and armament payload it has, making it difficult to effectively fight against enemy aircraft in operational airspace. Unlike twin-engine fighters, single-engine fighters also have the disadvantage that if one engine fails, they will crash helplessly.
The Republic of the Philippines, which has been struggling for a long time over MRFs, sent a Request for Information (RFI) to Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in late July. An RFI is when a buyer asks a supplier to send you rough information about the goods you want to buy before bidding. The RFI sent to KAI by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of the Philippines was for the KF-21. In other words, they are interested in the KF-21 and have made an official request to KAI to send them relevant information.
The KF-21 could be a card that will blow away the troubles of the Republic of the Philippines Air Force at once. Unlike the F-16V or Gripen NG, the KF-21 was designed from the ground up as a 4.5th generation fighter. In addition, it is a model that has in mind the gradual evolution to the 5th and 6th generations during the design process. For this reason, the low-fidelity design has been actively adopted, and it is known that the radar reflection area (RCS) is much smaller than that of the existing 4.5th generation fighters. The exact RCS of the KF-21 is a secret, but it is estimated to be much smaller than the F/A-18E, which is one-fifth the size of the F-16C. It cannot be compared to fifth-generation stealth aircraft such as
the F-22 and F-35, but it is a "semi-stealth aircraft" that is very difficult to detect.
The KF-21's strength is that it is a medium-sized fighter in a weight class higher than the F-16 and Gripen NG. The KF-21 can carry more fuel than the F/A-18E/F, which uses the same engine, but it weighs less. It means that it has excellent maneuverability and a wide range of combat action. There are no published figures, but the general assessment is that it is much wider than the F/A-18E/F's combat action radius of 722 km. Even if it takes off from Luzon or Palawan, it has the capability to carry out its mission over the disputed waters of the South China Sea without difficulty. In addition, the KF-21's main air-to-air armament, the "Meteor" missile, makes it possible to unilaterally launch missiles from a distance and leave without having to go over the disputed area. The Meteor has a range of 300 km and the so-called "unavoidable zone" (NEZ) is 2~3 times longer than that of conventional air-to-air missiles, making it a very dangerous weapon for People's Republic of China.
What is needed now is "diplomacy"
While there are still variables in terms of price, which will be the most important factor to consider, KAI reportedly expects around 100 billion won per KF-21 Block-2 unit to be purchased by Republic of the Philippines. The initial price of the 20 KF-21s India the ROK Air Force is 2.6262 trillion won, or 130 billion won each. Considering that this is the price of low-rate initial production (LRIP), the price decline is expected to be large in the future. The F-35 also cost more than $220 million (about 303 billion won) per unit in the initial mass production stage, but now that it is in full-scale mass production, the price has dropped to $80 million (about 110 billion won). If the price stabilizes with the full-scale mass production of the KF-21, there is no reason for the Republic of the Philippines not to buy the KF-21, which has an overwhelming advantage in performance compared to other candidate models.
In such a situation where the KF-21 has sufficient marketability, what South Korea should focus on is "diplomacy." At the time of the Norway tank acquisition project, K-Defense outperformed Germany's tanks in the military's comprehensive evaluation, but the Norway government overturned the tables due to "political factors." We hope that the relevant authorities and companies will team up and unify the Republic of the Philippines Air Force fighter force into "Made in Korea."
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![Korean-made light attack aircraft FA-50. [Wikipedia]](https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/037/2024/08/11/0000034828_003_20240811090218902.jpg?type=w647 "Korean-made light attack aircraft FA-50. [Wikipedia]")
![A People's Republic of China Coast Guard vessel, right, fires a water cannon at a Republic of the Philippines supply ship in waters near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (Spratly Islands with People's Republic of China and Republic of the Philippines Kalayan Islands) on March 5 (local time). [Newsis]](https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/037/2024/08/11/0000034828_004_20240811090218956.jpg?type=w647 "A People's Republic of China Coast Guard vessel, right, fires a water cannon at a Republic of the Philippines supply ship in waters near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (Spratly Islands with People's Republic of China and Republic of the Philippines Kalayan Islands) on March 5 (local time). [Newsis]")
