Poland and South Korea are reportedly near finalising a significant arms deal which is able to embody the sale of 48 Korean F-50 light-weight fighter jets in addition to 850 tanks and self propelled artillery items, with the sale marking the newest of a number of successes for the plane which first flew in 2002 and has seen orders from over half a dozen international locations in each fight and coach variants. The F-50 is a spinoff of the T-50 coach, which by way of fight capabilities is taken into account essentially the most succesful on this planet exterior Taiwan and the Chinese language mainland, and inherits the coach’s low operational prices and ease of upkeep whereas bettering its lethality significantly. With Taiwan’s competing Courageous Eagle jet having but to materialise, the T-50 is extensively thought-about essentially the most superior coach produced to be suitable with U.S. and NATO {hardware}, main the U.S. Air Power amongst others to point out sturdy curiosity in acquisitions. F-50 orders come as Poland seeks to maximise its fight potential within the face of rising tensions with neighbouring Russia, and as retirement of present squadrons of Su-22 and MiG-29 fighters acquired from the Soviet Union is anticipated within the close to future. The T/F-50 has seen important use of fight within the Philippines and Iraq, specifically for counterinsurgency operations towards Islamist militants, though its capability to meaningfully contribute to operations towards a contemporary state militaries resembling these of Russia and Belarus stays in query.
A significant shortcoming of the F-50 as a contemporary fighter is its lack of viable past visible vary air to air capabilities, which whereas adequate on the Korean Peninsula the place a lot of North Korea’s Air Power equally lacks such capabilities, can be a significant shortcoming in Japanese Europe with Russia’s newest air to air missiles being among the many most succesful on this planet. Though plans to combine the AIM-120C air to air missile onto the fighter had been beforehand thought-about, with the missile having superior capabilities to these equipping most Russian and Belarusian fighter squadrons, this by no means materialised leaving the fighters relying solely on AIM-9 infrared guided missiles and A-50 rotary cannon. The chance that F-50s may very well be modified to make use of such missiles in future, nevertheless, can’t be dominated out, with the potential for equipping them with anti ship cruise missiles additionally having additionally been raised for future variants.
Studies of a giant F-50 sale to Poland comes simply days after South Korea performed the maiden flight of its stealth fighter, the KF-21, which made it solely the fourth nation on this planet to fly such an plane and the primary to hitch the unique listing since 2011 when China first flew its J-20 prototype. The F-50 sale is anticipated not solely to inject appreciable new funds into this system, which might pave the way in which for growth of a lot of proposed variants resembling digital assault jets, however might additionally doubtlessly open the door to Polish acquisitions of the KF-21 as the next finish counterpart.
