South Korea will flag its entry into the supersonic club this month when KAI flies its T-50 at the Seoul air show. But will inexperience hinder its export ambitions?
South Korea is hoping the delivery this month of its first indigenous supersonic aircraft will propel the country’s aerospace industry to a new level and lead to the establishment of a new export business.
The T-50 Golden Eagle, developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) with assistance from Lockheed Martin, will make its public debut next week at the 2005 Seoul air show and its international debut next month at the Dubai air show. KAI developed the T-50 to meet a domestic requirement for 50 advanced jet trainers (AJT), 22 lead-in fighter trainers (LIFT) and 22 close-air support (CAS) aircraft. But the South Korean government expects its investment in the programme to reap dividends in the form of at least 600 exports and KAI also expects to sell up to 140 additional aircraft domestically in the form of F-50 fighter versions.
Having finished an initial flight-test programme consisting of nearly 1,200 sorties and completed the first production aircraft, KAI believes the T-50 is ready to make the next leap forward and compete internationally. With delivery of the first production T-50, scheduled for just before the Seoul air show opens on 18 October, South Korea has become one of 12 nations producing supersonic aircraft. “T-50 production is the most significant turning point in the Korean aerospace industry,” said South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun during the recent roll-out of the first production aircraft.
But industry observers warn it will not be easy to convince overseas military customers to acquire Korean-built aircraft and are sceptical of KAI’s ability to overcome the huge barriers to entry that face manufacturers striving to expand into the highly competitive export market. “How many air forces are looking for a supersonic trainer? At some point you want to go supersonic, but not necessarily as an advanced trainer,” says one observer.
But KAI believes the T-50’s flexibility to perform a wide mix of missions will win over air forces. “It’s not only an advanced trainer, it can also be used as a light combat aircraft,” says KAI chief executive Hae Joo Chung. “The aircraft has great design features. We should not just dwell on the domestic requirement.”
KAI has no experience selling and supporting aircraft overseas, with the exception of seven KT-1 primary trainers delivered to Indonesia in 2003 as part of a barter deal. But KAI believes its partnership with Lockheed will help overcome aircraft support concerns voiced by some potential customers. The company believes an ongoing effort to reduce the cost of the T-50 will make it competitive, albeit a little more expensive than rivals such as the Aermacchi M346 and BAE Systems Hawk 128.
Cost reductions
KAI is now working with T-50 suppliers to reduce costs, but declines to reveal a price tag for the export variant. South Korea is paying about $20-22 million per aircraft for the first batch of T-50s, but the price for exports will vary depending on the configuration specified by the customer.
“We believe as far as performance is concerned our aircraft is best,” says Chung, adding that the cost reduction initiative will result in a “price that is right for the marketplace”.
KAI and Lockheed have already begun marketing the Golden Eagle internationally, with Greece, Israel, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) considered the best near-term candidates. KAI believes the Greek requirement for roughly 36 aircraft is the most urgent and that Athens will probably withdraw from the Eurotraining programme because its fleet of Rockwell T-2 trainers needs to be replaced before the Eurotraining solution is available next decade. KAI has offered Greece deliveries as early as 28 months after contract signing and believes other European countries may also consider the T-50 if the Eurotrainer programme is further delayed.
UAE has an unpredictable requirement that could lead to a contract for up to 60 aircraft as early as this year, but its evaluation of new advanced trainers could drag on for several years. Singapore is planning to launch an AJT competition next year for 12-15 aircraft, while Israel has already begun evaluating new advanced trainers for a 20-30 aircraft requirement, but does not need deliveries until 2010.
KAI believes it is now in position to more heavily promote the Golden Eagle overseas because it will soon be available for demonstration flights. UAE VIPs will fly the aircraft during its visit to the Dubai air show next month and other potential customers have been invited for test flights in South Korea. “With the completion of the flight-test programme, we anticipate a lot of opportunities for foreign test pilots,” says Chung.
One T-50 will fly at the Seoul air show and another will feature in the static display. They will then be disassembled and flown to the UAE on an Antonov financed by the Dubai air show organisers. KAI may also send the aircraft to Asian Aerospace 2006 in Singapore next February.
Evaluation slots
There will be several opportunities for leaders from foreign air forces to evaluate the T-50 in conjunction with these shows as well as at the KAI factory in Sacheon.
So far the only pilots outside the seven-man flight-test team to fly the T-50 are the chief of the South Korean air force and a training squadron commander. An initial batch of four instructor pilots has been stationed at Sacheon since June and completed ground training in July. But they are still waiting to fly the aircraft because a five-month, 200-sortie extension to the flight-test programme forced the air force to delay a plan to begin instructor pilot training in September. Another 10 instructor pilots are also waiting to fly the aircraft at Kwangju airbase, where a unit has been reactivated for the T-50.
“All the syllabus has been made and the training schedule is already made. Everyone is waiting for the aircraft,” says KAI T-50 test pilot Kwon Hui Man.
The first four instructors are expected to begin flying this month by conducting some of the extra 200 sorties required. KAI completed the last of 1,146 sorties required as part of the original full-scale development (FSD) contract on 26 August. But KAI and the defence ministry agreed last month to extend testing by about another 200 flights, the last of which is scheduled for late January.
Extra flights
About 70 of the extra sorties will be part of operational assessment (OA) testing. These sorties will be flown by pilots from the operational wing, while the rest will be conducted by the five air force and two KAI pilots who are part of the combined test team. “By the end of January we expect 1,350 sorties,” says Hui Man.
Most of the additional 200 sorties are required to further test weapon delivery for the A-50 attack variant and will be flown using the two A-50 prototypes. But about 20 of the additional sorties, all of which have now been flown, were also needed to complete the flight envelope and fully validate the aircraft and engine operational limitations (AEOL). The last of these sorties was completed on 27 September, marking the conclusion to the FSD programme. “Now we can say FSD is really over,” says Hui Man.
On 28 September the first production aircraft was flown for the first time. The first acceptance test was originally scheduled for 18 August, but was delayed by more than one month pending the completion of negotiations over the modification to the original flight-test contract. The delay has forced the air force to drop its previous plan for 11 acceptance tests before delivery. KAI is now hoping to get away with only four sorties, two by KAI pilots and two by air force pilots, and says all 11 acceptance tests will instead be performed on the second production aircraft. Subsequent production aircraft will require two acceptance tests before delivery.
KAI believes the last of the four acceptance tests can be completed by mid-October, allowing the first aircraft to be delivered to the air force before the start of the Seoul show. KAI has been pushing the air force to take the aircraft before the show, otherwise the T-50 will be unable to fly. KAI is not comfortable demonstrating aircraft that are still in its possession.
In most programmes the first production aircraft would not be accepted until after all flight testing has been completed, but KAI believes the T-50 is a special case because there are two variants. The flight-test programme included two T-50 and two A-50 prototypes, although delivery of the first production A-50 LIFT aircraft is still several years away.
“They wrapped up two aircraft in one requirement document. That’s the dilemma we have,” says Sacheon plant aircraft production chief Gyoung Min Kim. He explains that KAI has demonstrated all heavy weapon configurations for the A-50, but some test points need to be verified.
Expectations surpassed
T-50 development division chief Woo Lee stresses that during the initial 1,146 sorties the four prototype aircraft performed “as good as or slightly better than expected”. In particular he says the T-50 has exceeded design expectations during transonic manoeuvring and high angle of attack.
South Korea opted to pursue the unusual step of simultaneous development and production of the T-50, with an initial production contract awarded in December 2003 despite the flight-test programme being less than half complete, so as to receive aircraft from late 2005.
Engineering changes had to be made after production began because of findings made during the latter stages of the flight-test programme, but Kim says they were all minor. For example, KAI had to install new mechanically activated batteries after discovering the wrong products had been mistakenly installed in the initial batch of aircraft. Small changes were also made to screws on the General Electric F404-102 powerplant to improve maintainability.
In August, KAI also completed retrofits to the aircraft’s flight-control system and avionics, which Kim says could have been performed post-delivery, but the air force insisted they be done earlier because they affected operational flight performance.
Based on the production contract signed in 2003, KAI is required to deliver the first two aircraft by year-end, another 10 in 2006, 12 in 2007 and three in the first quarter of 2008. After the eighth aircraft is delivered in September 2006, the T-50 will achieve initial operating capability.
T-50 production programme senior manager Yeon Sup Lee says assembly will gradually spool up next year and reach a rate of one aircraft a month in the fourth quarter. This rate will be sustained until the last of the initial batch of 25 aircraft are delivered in March 2008.
Lee says KAI “plans to make a contract in March of next year” for another 47 aircraft to be delivered from April 2008 to July 2011. The 47 aircraft include 25 additional T-50 AJT and 22 A-50 LIFT aircraft. Lee says the last of the LIFT aircraft was originally scheduled to be delivered in December 2010, but this was adjusted earlier this year by the government and stretched by eight months.
The government also pushed out delivery of the last of 22 CAS aircraft from the end of 2011 to the end of 2012. KAI is still waiting for a development contract for the CAS configuration, but hopes to start the development effort in late 2006 and begin deliveries at the end of 2008.
The air force has not yet decided on a final CAS configuration, but is considering several upgrades beyond the A-50 LIFT variant, including radar-warning receivers, countermeasures dispensers, on-board inert gas generating system, datalink, night-vision goggles, a forward-looking infrared sensor and Textron Systems’ CBU-105 sensor fuzed weapon.
Woo Lee says KAI has already started working on some CAS configurations and a feasibility study will begin in early 2006 to further improve the aircraft’s survivability. Vendors for the upgraded equipment will be selected later.
KAI is trying to convince Seoul to couple development of the planned A-50+ CAS aircraft with development of the proposed F-50 fighter. The F-50, which would extend the T-50 production line well beyond 2012 and replace South Korea’s fleet of nearly 200 Northrop F-5 fighters, would feature all the equipment in the A-50+ as well as a third multifunction display and several heavier weapons.
Primary training
The South Korean air force says it will begin using the T-50 to train new pilots in 2007. The air force already uses an indigenous aircraft, KAI’s KT-1, for primary training. It says the T-50 coupled with the KT-1 opens a new era for training and pledges to only use South Korean trainers in the future.
The T-50 will give the air force one platform for the AJT and LIFT missions, replacing a mix of Hawks, Northrop T-38s and F-5Bs. Korea plans to return its fleet of 30 T-38s to their lessor, the US Air Force, while its 17 Hawks will be retired. The F-5s used for training will be retired and potentially the F-5s used as fighters will be replaced with F-50s in the next decade.
BRENDAN SOBIE/SACHEON
Source: Flight International
