KF-21 4th Unit First Flight Success

Flight for 34 Minutes at the 3rd Training Flight Group

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The fourth prototype of the Korean fighter jet KF-21 (Boramae) has also successfully completed its maiden flight.

According to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) on the 20th, the KF-21 prototype 4 successfully completed its first flight by flying for 34 minutes at the 3rd Training Flight Group in Sacheon, Gyeongnam. Prototype 4 took off at 11:19 a.m. and landed at 11:53 a.m. The flight was piloted by Major Jeon Seung-hyun of the Air Force's 52nd Test and Evaluation Squadron.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The first flight of prototype 4 came seven months after the successful maiden flight of prototype 1 in July last year. Unlike the existing single-seat prototypes, the KF-21 prototype 4 is a two-seater with front and rear cockpits, accommodating two pilots. Prototype 4 will be used for various missions until system development is completed (scheduled for June 2026), including verifying the impact of shape differences from the single-seat model on the aircraft and testing the performance of the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.

With the addition of the cockpit near the front fuselage, some internal fuel tank space has been modified, but the rest of the aircraft maintains the same shape as the single-seat model. Among the six prototypes, the 4th and 6th will be built as two-seaters. The KF-21 two-seater will be used for new pilot training missions after development. The paint scheme of prototype 4, like prototype 3, features a design of four aircraft simultaneously soaring into the sky on the vertical tail fin, but differs in that the aircraft's ascending shape is colored (yellow).

DAPA plans to deploy prototypes 5 and 6 for flight testing in the first half of the year to expand the flight envelope with a total of six aircraft and verify aircraft performance. The KF-21 successfully completed its maiden flight on July 19 last year and broke the sound barrier on the 17th of last month. Over seven months since the maiden flight, more than 110 test flights have been conducted.

DAPA is pushing forward the development schedule with the goal of completing about 2,000 test flights by February 2026. According to KAI, the KF-21 is equipped with twin engines and incorporates low-observable (stealth) technology. It measures 16.9 meters in length, 11.2 meters in width, and 4.7 meters in height, making it larger than the F-16 fighter jet and similar in size to the F-18 fighter jet. Its maximum speed is Mach 1.81 (2,200 km/h), with a range of 2,900 km and a weapons payload capacity of 7.7 tons.

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