hankyoreh

By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter

US company Lockheed Martin’s F-35A fighter may turn out to be the only candidate for the South Korean military’s next-generation jet fighter (FX) project, military sources say. There are concerns that if the F-35A becomes the candidate for the project, it will be purchased under an ad libitum (or ‘free’) contract, which would put South Korea at a disadvantage in terms of price and technology transfer,

“At the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Nov. 22, decisions will be made on what is needed for the required operational capacity of the fighter, the number of fighters to purchase, and the timeframe for deploying them,” said an air force officer on condition of anonymity.

The meeting will be attended by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by the chiefs of staff for the army, navy and air force.

As of now, the only fighter that has the superior anti-radar stealth capacity demanded by the air force - including an internal weapons bay - is the F-35A.

It is expected that the joint chiefs of staff will decide to purchase 60 planes, the same as last time. However, they are also considering purchasing forty planes at first and twenty more at a later point in consideration of the high cost of the F-35A.

Given the fact that the price of 60 F-35As during the last competitive bidding process was around 10 trillion won (US$9.42 billion), the maximum number of F-35As that could be purchased with the total project budget of 8.3 trillion won (7.5 trillion won for the cost of the fighters) is around 45.

If the contract is signed in the second half of 2014, it is believed that the planes would actually start to be deployed in 2018. This would represent about a one year delay from the next generation jet fighter FX project that was suspended in September.

With signs that the joint chiefs of staff will select outstanding stealth technology as a required operational capability in the meeting on Nov. 22, the prevailing mood is that the F-35A has effectively been selected as the next generation fighter.

But there are also concerns that, if the F-35A is chosen as the next generation fighter, it could have a negative influence on the development method and model used in the Korean next jet fighter project.

The air force originally suggested requirements that only the F-35A was capable of satisfying. While the fighter selection process was falling apart in September, a group of former air force chiefs of staff made a forceful appeal for the same thing.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff argued that South Korea needs fighters with superior stealth capability to win any future war in Northeast Asia. Indeed, China and Russia are developing their own stealth fighters, while Japan is planning to purchase F-35As from the US before producing about 60 more fighters on its own.

But purchasing stealth fighters would also require South Korea to make quite a few sacrifices. While the air force is asking for the purchase of 60 F-35As, that would be impossible within the current project budget of 8.3 trillion won (7.5 trillion for the actual price of the fighters). Two or three trillion (a little less than two or three billion dollars) more won would be necessary. This is why the most common prediction is that South Korea will divide its purchase into 40 and 20 fighters.

Another issue is that this time ad libitum contract will be used since there is no other fighter being considered. As a result, it is likely that South Korea will have to purchase the planes for more than the approximately 10 trillion won for 60 planes that the US government offered during the final bidding in September.

Analysts also expect that extra incentives included in the purchase, such as technology transfer, will be much less attractive than before.

Furthermore, the air force will be unable to make up for its inadequate supply of fighters for the time being. With the delay of the next generation jet fighter project and the Korean fighter project, the air force is predicting a shortfall of several dozen fighters.

“If the F-35A is chosen by the joint chiefs, we will only be able to deploy about 40 new planes. This means that we will be 20 planes short,” said Lee Hee-woo, head of the Integrated Logistics Support Research Institute at Chungnam National University.

While the air force argues that it can purchase about 20 additional fighters if it fails to obtain 60 fighters in this project, it would not be easy to get approval for the additional purchase of 20 planes at a cost of 3-4 trillion won.

Furthermore, since the deployment of F-35As might not begin until 2018, the air force could find itself facing a chronic shortage of fighters.

Things are not looking much better for the future of the fighter project, whose required operational capability will be decided on Nov. 22 along with that of the next-generation fighter project.

Most problematic is the fact that if a new twin-engine fighter is developed according to the air force’s wishes, it would probably cost more than 8 trillion won.

It would be difficult for the Defense Ministry to cover 3-4 trillion won in additional funding for the next generation fighter project and 8 trillion won for the Korean fighter project with its current budget.

“With the next generation fighter project switching to a ad libitum method, it will be difficult to get much in the way of technology transfer,” said Kim Jong-dae, editor-in-chief of the defense journal Defense 21+. “We are also expecting considerable difficulties in the development of the Korean fighter.”

“Just because the F-35A is selected doesn’t mean that the Korean fighter project is being canceled,” said an air force officer on condition of anonymity.

“We can do a joint project or get technical consulting and develop it on our own. Modifications may be made to the fighter design, but we are not going to give up on the development itself.”

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