GE Aviation delivers first KF-X engine to Korea
General Electric (GE) Aviation
has delivered to South Korea the first engine for the country’s KF-X indigenous future fighter development.
The US-based powerplant manufacturer announced the milestone on 4 June, noting that the first F414-GE-400K engine was delivered in May.
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)
selected GE Aviation in May 2016 to partner on the KF-X project, with an initial 15 F414-GE-400K engines to be delivered by 2021 to power six testbed aircraft (plus three spares).
The Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF) is set to receive 120 KF-X aircraft, for which GE Aviation will provide 240 F414-GE-400K engines plus spares.
The KF-X fighter concept
was first revealed by South Korea’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) in 2010.
Indonesia
joined the project in 2012, with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) covering joint development of the platform that Jakarta refers to as IF-X.
As budgets have waxed and waned, the project has fluctuated from being a full-up ‘fifth-generation’ fighter into a less sophisticated ‘4.5-generation’ fighter, and back again.
In its latest guise,
- KF-X will be twin-engined,
- low observable (LO),
- multirole combat aircraft
equipped with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and internal weapons carriage.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/60c0ec7b-6744-4af8-886f-61b96363480d