consoleman
Site Admin
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5735
Location: In the Pacific ocean
|
 Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:29 pm Post subject: South Korea Airs Development Plans |
 |
|
| Quote: | South Korea Airs Development Plans
Jan 24, 2010
By Bradley Perrett
Stepping up its push to become a leading player in global aerospace, South Korea proposes to build a 90-seat turboprop under an industry development plan that also seeks to press ahead with the KF-X fighter and KAH attack helicopter programs.
The government has decided that the KAH should be a new aircraft, not a derivative of the Surion utility helicopter of Korea Aerospace Industries. A civil derivative of either the KAH or Surion will also be delivered.
The 2010-19 plan aims at raising South Korean aerospace turnover tenfold, making the country one of the top seven in the global industry, up from 16th now.
Advancing either the KF-X or KAH would address an issue more critical than expansion. Without at least one of those projects, Korea Aerospace Industries and other companies will struggle to maintain military aircraft development skills that they have been building up with the T-50 supersonic trainer, its FA-50 combat derivative and the Surion.
Parliament seems not to agree about the importance of those skills, however—it threw out both programs in the 2010 budget, even though they needed only tiny amounts of money this year, about enough to set up program offices.
The government now proposes to seek KF-X and KAH funds for 2011, although the Defense Acquisition Projects Administration has previously planned to try again to get the money this year in a supplementary budget.
It remains to be seen whether parliament will look more favorably on the 90-seat airliner, which will also need government support. The knowledge economy ministry, which drafted the aerospace development plan, describes the airliner as a strategic program, adding that its configuration and detailed design will be determined later. It will be a turboprop, state broadcaster KBS says. The project has evidently replaced the 60-seat regional jet that Korea Aerospace was working on in 2008 (AW&ST July 14, 2008, p. 82).
Such a turboprop airliner would be larger than, but still a competitor to, the proposed MA700 of China’s Avic Aircraft, as well as the ATR 72 from EADS and Alenia Aeronautica and the Bombardier Q400. The latter may be stretched to accommodate 90 passengers as the Q400X.
South Korean industry, like Avic Aircraft, would surely need an international partner to execute the program, as it relied on help from Lockheed Martin for the T-50 and from Eurocopter for the Surion. Western manufacturers of big turboprop airliners might be tempted, seeing the aircraft as a replacement for their current products.
The ministry also proposes a business jet, but with less conviction. Industry is evaluating the potential for such a product, it says, presumably aware that business aircraft proposals are multiplying in neighboring China and Japan (AW&ST Sept. 28, 2009, p. 34; Oct. 6, 2008, p. 54).
One issue must be whether South Korea has the aerospace engineering resources to handle all of these projects. Another is whether the programs will achieve commercial success. The industry is a valued supplier to Airbus and Boeing, and with heavy government support it delivers aircraft to the South Korean armed forces, but it has so far had limited success in selling abroad.
Of the KF-X and KAH military projects, the helicopter is less technically ambitious, more exportable and therefore more likely to survive. The government has thrown out three schemes for Surion derivatives, which were compromised by excess weight and bulk, and has also rejected a dedicated design with the traditional skinny two-seat body (AW&ST Aug. 24/31, 2009, p. 30). Instead it wants a helicopter with a small cabin and 6-8 seats—a configuration less than ideal for battlefield attack but good for civil adaptation.
The proposed weight of 5 tons would make it comparable to the AgustaWestland Lynx and Eurocopter Dauphin. Notably, it would fit well in the Eurocopter range below the 7-ton EC175 the EADS unit is developing with China’s Avicopter.
The government will review the feasibility of the KAH program in late 2012 and decide then whether to commit to full-scale development. Parallel development of military and civil versions is a possibility, but a civil Surion could be preferred.
The defense ministry has proposed to build 260 KAHs (down from a previously specified 274) to replace about 70 Bell AH-1Ss and 270 Hughes 500s from 2018. Parliament’s refusal to allow exploratory development to begin in 2010 may mean a one-year delay in entry into service. Exploratory development costs are estimated at 19.2 billion won ($17 million), part of a full development budget of 700 billion won. Production is supposed to cost 3 trillion won, which works out to about $10 million each.
Among the critics of the KAH, member of parliament Kim Dong Seong says it would be too vulnerable to portable anti-aircraft missiles fielded by North Korea.
The KAH has seemed increasingly important as the KF-X fighter program has grown more doubtful. The Korea Development Institute, a leading national think tank, condemned the KF-X two years ago as economically unfeasible. The air force responded by commissioning a report from a second think tank, one attached to Konkuk University, which recommended last year that the KF-X go ahead but with Generation 4.5 technology instead of the originally specified fifth-generation. It estimated the aircraft could be developed for 5-6 trillion won and built at a unit price of 50 billion won with a production run of 250.
One concern about the program is whether South Korea would be wasting its money in fielding a Generation 4.5 aircraft in the early 2020s. Illustrating that point, Boeing is promoting an advanced F/A-18E/F that it calls the Global Super Hornet—but the type would go into service about 55 years after the then-Northrop company drew up the P-530 design from which the F/A-18 series emerged.
The KF-X project aims at fielding a fighter by 2021, although that timing has probably now slipped by a year. It would be either a new design or a radical upgrade of a foreign aircraft, such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen or Super Hornet. The fighter would be of about the size of the Typhoon and fill a distant air force requirement called F-XX.
Before then, the air force plans to buy a large combat aircraft under a requirement called F-X phase III (or F-X3). That will be a foreign fighter, possibly the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning. Boeing is offering a version of the F-15 with reduced radar reflectivity. The ministry says the large aircraft should be of fifth-generation technology (which can only mean the F-35) and that South Korea should consider license production (which is highly unlikely to be available for the F-35). More realistically, it suggests securing advanced technology through offset deals.
A decision on full-scale development of the KF-X should be made in 2013, the ministry says, adding that talks are underway with Turkey and Indonesia to share costs and enlarge the production run.
One opponent of the KF-X program, member of parliament Yoo Seong Min, wants the project strangled now because of what he sees as a tendency for South Korean equipment projects to become unstoppable once they get going. Approval for full-scale development tends to be rubber-stamped, he argues.
Whatever the KF-X’s shortcomings, the ministry reveals that South Korea is looking beyond piloted combat aircraft. It proposes evaluating development of a combat drone from 2020. Work began in 2009 on a medium-altitude surveillance drone that is to be developed by 2011, designed to operate below 50,000 ft. and for adaptation to the high-altitude role. A prototype high-altitude surveillance drone will follow in 2012.
|
_________________
KS Admin
"Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone" |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
fChat
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
