South Korea successfully tests maiden flight of home-built 2nd prototype fighter jet

Korean Aerospace Industries mulling producing 4 more prototypes and running their test flights from Dec. 2022 until 1st half of 2023

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – South Korea on Thursday successfully tested the maiden flight of the second prototype of an indigenously developed fighter jet, the KF-21 Boramae.

“The second prototype of KF-21 Boramae took off from the Air Force's 3rd Flying Training Wing in Sacheon at 9:49 a.m. (0049GMT) and landed without a hitch at 10:24 a.m. (0124GMT),” South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a statement.

Sacheon is a city in South Gyeongsang province, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of the capital Seoul.

Since 2015, Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) has been developing the fighter jet at a cost of around $6.4 billion.

On July 19, the KAI successfully tested the first prototype of the 4.5th generation.

The KAI is mulling producing four more prototypes and running their test flights from Dec. 2022 until the first half of 2023.

When ready, the home-built supersonic fighter jets will replace South Korea's aging fleet of F-4 and F-5 jets, with the military expecting to deploy 120 KF-21 aircraft by 2032.

Kaynak:

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