[Summary] KF-21 First Flight Success... 8th Supersonic Fighter Jet Developing Nation

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The Korean fighter jet (KF-21) ‘Boramae’ successfully completed its first flight on the 19th. On that day, the KF-21 prototype took off around 3:40 PM and landed around 4:13 PM.

With the success of the first flight, South Korea became the eighth country in the world to develop a supersonic fighter jet, 21 years and 4 months after declaring the KF-X project.

The first flight was piloted by Major Ahn Jun-hyun (Air Force Academy Class 54) of the Air Force 52nd Test and Evaluation Squadron.

The KF-21 project is valued at a total of 8.8 trillion won, making it the “largest power enhancement project since the era of Dangun.” The KF-21 began in earnest as the Korean fighter jet (KF-X) project when President Kim Dae-jung declared in August 2001 that “a domestically produced fighter jet will be developed by 2015.”

The military plans to conduct about 2,000 sorties (flight missions) of test flights by 2026 to verify flight performance and handling characteristics. Even during the test flights, ground tests will continue to detect and correct even minor errors in the equipment installed on the KF-21 to maximize performance. Subsequently, the jet is expected to receive a ‘provisional combat suitability’ certification in the latter half of next year, a ‘final combat suitability’ certification in 2026, and continue additional weapons testing until 2028.

The Air Force is pursuing not only the development of the KF-21 to replace aging fighter jets and strengthen its capabilities but also plans to introduce about 20 more stealth fighters (F-35A) as part of the second phase of the next-generation fighter (F-X) project, and to additionally secure FA-50s that can be mass-produced and delivered starting early 2025. In particular, increasing the initial batch of KF-21s from 40 to 60 units and reducing the follow-up batch by 20 units to complete the project by 2030, two years earlier, is expected to shorten the retirement of aging F-4 and F-5 jets by 3 to 5 years.

The project duration varies depending on the block referring to the fighter jet version. System development (Block I) is being developed from 2015 to 2026 with an investment of 8.1 trillion won in cooperation with Indonesia. Subsequently, additional weapons testing (Block II), pursued solely by Korea, will be invested with 700 billion won from 2026 to 2028.

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