steve2267 wrote:What is "KF-X"? ETA: OK, so I take it that "KF-X" is the "new" fighter being developed by Korea for the ROK Air Force and Indonesian Air Force. Wiki says 120 units for ROK, and 50 for Indonesia, but "total" production over 250. Dunno where the other 80 come from. Spreading development costs across 170-250 units would seem to guarantee a high flyway cost. Or I should say, it will be difficult to recoup development costs across only 170-250 units.
250 basically future production for the needs of the ROKAF and Indonesian Air Forces
steve2267 wrote:Only 12,000lb of gas? Range is going to suffer. And with two engines? Two engines are generally not goint to be as fuel efficient as one larger (i.e. F-135) engine. Not clear on how the SPFE of the F-414 compares to the F-135, but I doubt two EJ2000's are anywhere near as fuel efficient as an F-135. Range is going to really suffer.
Should have comparable legs to a Eurofighter or Rafale shouldn't it? Those 2 don't operate 'clean' with no tanks because they aren't stealth so I acknowledge it's inferior to the F-35A as a long range strike aircraft but I don't think the 'stealth' configuration range of the KF-X would be operationally unusable. In fact the ROKAF wanted something well exceeding the KF-16 but nothing like the F-15K, it's more the Indonesian Air Force that wants the endurance to patrol their vast airspace.
steve2267 wrote:Allegedly same size as F-35. But only 24,450 - 24,500lb empty weight? Because why? Because the weight fairy says so? Because someone waived their magic weight wand? Because it is only 5g capable and they saved the weight because they don't require 9g capability? ETA: I suppose if there is no internal weapons bays... you might save structural weight. if they are just trying for Gen 4.5 (no stealth), then maybe that empty weight is feasible. Seems unrealisitically light, though.
Seems comparable in size and thus weight to a Eurofighter? Maybe it's optimistic but not unrealistic, surely? The F-35A carries far more internal fuel and has has far larger IWBs.
steve2267 wrote:My response: yawn...
But if ROK wants to build it to give their aerospace industry something to do... who am I to say no? Just don't be using US Foreign Aid to finance your aero industry is all I have to say about that.
If the Korean Aerospace industry pulls off something approaching a Eurofighter/Rafale/MiG-35 in performance is it really a 'yawn'? And what comes under the umbrella of 'US Foreign Aid'
gta4 wrote:I think it is impossible to downsize the weight below 13000 kg.
Proof:
Even without internal weapon bay, a fighterjet with similar size still weights at least 11000kg (Mig-29). The addition of internal weapon bay adds at least 2000 kg.
Working forwards from the MiG-29 seems to be difficult, but the F-35 is 13,000kg. If you could make it smaller so it carried less fuel and had IWBs that only were big enough for 4 AAMs, would it be impossible to save around 1,500kg in weight?
Those are really old images. The AESA hardware is being supplied by Hanwha Systems, are most definitely GaN, and should have an output of around 15W per TRM. I'm not sure how technologically advanced/unadvanced that is.