The Place Where the Heart of Submarines and Aircraft Is Produced

Maintenance building servicing more than 30 engines.

The maintenance building where more than 30 engines are being serviced.

When an engine reaches the speed of Mach, a sonic boom phenomenon occurs.

The test operation room where the engine that has completed maintenance is undergoing a trial run.

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] Our military faced the Korean War without a single fighter jet. The Air Force struggled by manually dropping bombs from liaison aircraft. Later, they introduced the F-51 fighter jets from the U.S. Air Force and were able to conduct their first solo sortie on October 11, 1951. At that time, engine maintenance could not be performed domestically, so everything had to be entrusted to the U.S. military. Now, 70 years later, to check how far our aircraft engine maintenance technology has come, I visited the local factory of Hanwha Aerospace located in Changwon, Gyeongnam on the 2nd.

Upon entering the factory gate, a five-story orange building caught my eye. The building welcomed me with the phrase “Global Number One Partner in Aircraft Engines.” On the first floor, engines for warships, helicopters, and fighter jets were on display. Hanwha Aerospace, which started engine maintenance for the F-5 fighter jet in 1978, has now modified and developed the T700-701K engine used in the Korean utility helicopter Surion. The ‘K’ attached to the engine name signifies the Korean model, making it effectively the first domestically developed engine. Hanwha Aerospace also maintains engines from the world’s top three aircraft engine manufacturers: Rolls-Royce, General Electric (GE), and Pratt & Whitney (P&W). Lee Seung-du, head of the Engine Assembly and Production Technology Team, said, “We maintain over 30 types of engines used by the Army, Navy, and Air Force,” adding, “We even have the technical capability to produce missile engines such as the Haeseong anti-ship missile.”

Moving to the adjacent engine assembly building, I saw a variety of engines ranging from 1-meter square engines to 4-meter large engines. At first glance, they all looked the same, but on the left were engines for the Light Armed Helicopter (LAH), and on the right were engines for the Korean fighter KF-21 ‘Boramae’ and warship engines. The LAH engine is from the French company Safran, with 14 key parts out of about 800 components domestically produced. In terms of price, this accounts for 22% of the engine cost. A company official hinted, “Because engine tolerances must be controlled to micron levels?one hundredth the thickness of a human hair?maintenance is carried out with the precision of a surgeon performing an operation.”

Before full-scale production of the Korean fighter KF-21 ‘Boramae,’ six prototype aircraft are being built for testing and evaluation. Each fighter jet is equipped with two engines. A total of 12 engines, plus 2 spare engines, making 15 engines, are produced here. Ten engines are directly imported from GE, two are produced under license, and three will have domestically produced parts. This symbolizes installing our own heart into the fighter jets made by our hands.

I moved to the engine maintenance building where engines used by the military are disassembled and serviced. Used engines are black, while serviced engines shine silver like new, making them easy to distinguish. Used engines are completely disassembled down to every screw and undergo non-destructive testing such as ultrasonic inspection. Decisions are made on parts replacement and reuse before reassembly. Serviced engines have their lifespan extended by 10 years.

Serviced engines are moved to the test run room. The engines are test-run and brought up to maximum output. The process takes just one minute. In the quiet test run room with no breeze, a loud roar escaped. The wires attached to the engine began to shake. Outside the test room, monitor readings started to rise endlessly. Finally, blue exhaust flames began to appear from the engine, and it started producing maximum output capable of flying a fighter jet at Mach speed. As the output increased, the engine exhaust flames showed the ‘Sonic Boom’ phenomenon. Sonic boom occurs when an object moves faster than the sound it produces, creating white vapor-like smoke around it. As I left the company, the words of an official echoed in my ears: “The pride of protecting our sky, land, and sea has brought us this far.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.