FA-50 에 Vixen AESA 사용을 거부하는 미국

SW | 2007-08-15 14:59:02

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아래 김병기님이 유사한 글을 올리셔서 관련 기사를 하나 올립니다.
핵심은 제목이 전부 말하고 있으며, 기타 내용은 FA-50 과 관련된
전후 경과및 사정을 설명하는 것으로 이곳에 계신분들에게는,
새로운것이 많치않아서 번역은 생략하겠습니다.

아래 기사는 백선호님이 쓰신것 입니다. 최근에 백선호님 글이
AW&ST에 많이 나오고 있습니다. KAH 관련 글, 일본의 stealth 전투기
관련 공동으로 쓰신것 등... 건필 하십시요.

U.S. forbids Selex radar on South Korea's FA-50 light fighter
Aviation Week & Space Technology
08/13/2007


Sunho Beck
Seoul



U.S. limit on FA-50 radar keeps South Korean light fighter from competing with F-16


Printed headline: Radar Intercepted


South Korea may have to rely on an old-technology sensor for its FA-50 light fighter because the U.S. refuses to allow the country to fit an advanced Selex radar to the aircraft, likely crippling its export prospects.

The South Korean air force will also probably have to rethink the FA-50’s role in its future force structure if lack of an adequate radar robs the aircraft of the ability to fight North Korean MiG-29s with a high chance of success.

The Korea Aerospace Industries FA-50 may have to be restricted to ground attack, and even then it will suffer from not having a modern radar with a synthetic aperture mode for high resolution.

Close support and the destruction of North Korean long-range artillery facing Seoul are the main roles of the aircraft. The South Korean capital is only 60 km. (37 mi.) away from the border.

But in declining to permit advanced FA-50 capability, the U.S. side is only exercising rights that were set out when the then-General Dynamics combat aircraft division agreed in the early 1990s to support South Korean development of a fast jet. Under the agreement, the aircraft’s combat capability had to remain below that of the F-16, to avoid competition.

Korea Aerospace will struggle to sell the fighter overseas without the preferred radar, the Vixen 500E active electronically scanned sensor built by Finmeccanica’s Selex unit. But Korean industry officials assume that that was the intention of the U.S. authorities: To ensure the FA-50 would be unattractive on export markets and offer no competition to the Lockheed Martin F-16.

The Vixen 500E is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar developed for small fighters and lead-in fighter trainers such as the Korean FA-50 and the Indian Tejas Light Combat Aircraft. The “500” in its name refers to the number of transmit/receive element modules in its antenna. Larger versions with 750 or 1,000 elements are also being promoted.

The Vixen 500E offers a number of air-to-surface and air-to-air operating modes, including synthetic-aperture for ground-mapping with a resolution of less than 3 meters (10 ft.) and track-while-scan of up to 10 airborne targets.

The FA-50 is to replace 175 F-5E/F fighters and 20 A-37B light attack aircraft now in service. The South Korean air force will start the development in September under budget plans approved this year. It aims to buy as many as 60 FA-50s between 2010 and 2015. The total development budget is 441.7 billion won ($479 million) and production cost is projected to be 2.456 trillion won, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

The South Korean air force chose the Vixen 500E so the FA-50 could engage hostile fighters such as North Korean MiG-29s with AIM-120 Amraam beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles. But South Korea needed U.S. consent to amend the Technical Assistance Agreement that enables U.S. companies to pass classified technical data to foreign companies. That consent was withheld.

The FA-50 is a combat development of the TA-50 lead-in fighter trainer, itself a variant of the T-50 advanced trainer codeveloped by Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries.

One condition of the development was that the aircraft not be designed as an F-16 competitor. Another was that the aircraft use third-party components only when equivalent parts were unavailable from South Korean or U.S. suppliers. Two U.S. companies offer AESA radars for F-16 and smaller fighters: Northrop Grumman, whose APG-80 Agile Beam Radar is fitted to the United Arab Emirates’ Block 60 F-16E/Fs, and Raytheon, whose Next Generation Radar (Rangr) is on the market but not yet adopted by any air force.


When the FA-50 was first proposed as the A-50, it was to get a Lockheed Martin APG-67(v)4 mechanically scanned radar. U.S. refusal to support use of the electronically scanned Selex Vixen 500E will likely ensure the project goes back to that earlier proposal.Credit: KOREA AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES

Under an earlier plan, the FA-50, then called A-50, was to have been fitted with the same Lockheed Martin APG-67(v)4 mechanically scanning radar used by the TA-50. The APG-67 was developed in the 1980s for the Northrop F-20 Tigershark program. The Golden Dragon 53 radar derived from it is fitted to Taiwan’s Ching Kuo Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF), which first flew in May 1989.

With the Selex Vixen 500E and presumably all equivalent radars now out of the running, South Korea looks likely to return to the APG-67(v)4.

The family of South Korea fast jets dates back to 1989, when the Agency for Defense Development, the office responsible for managing defense research and development, proposed the KTX-2 program to replace T-37 and F-5B trainers and to grow the aerospace industry.

General Dynamics agreed in 1991 to help develop the aircraft as part of the industrial offsets for a South Korean order for F-16s, but the money to launch the program didn’t become available until 1997.

The original twin-engine configuration changed to a single-engine one, for which General Electric’s F404-GE-102 turbofan was selected in November 1997. The outline design was finalized in 1999 and the new name T-50 was given the next year. The first T-50 was rolled out in September 2001 and the first flight occurred in August 2002.

The T-50 resembles a smaller F-16 with two side intakes. It weighs 6.5 metric tons when empty and has a maximum takeoff weight of 13.5 tons. Its wing area is 23.7 square meters (255 sq. ft.) and fuel capacity, 2.2 tons. The first derivative, the TA-50 lead-in fighter trainer, is equipped with an APG-67(v)4 radar and an M197 three-barrel 20mm. gun.

The FA-50 light fighter will have survival aids such as a radar warning receiver and a chaff and flare dispensing system, and will also be capable of dropping GPS-guided bombs, which the current South Korean KF-16C/D Block 52 fighters lack due to insufficient memory capacity in their mission computers.

All three variants have an integrated mission/display computer that boasts 185 times greater computing power than the KF-16’s mission computer and 64 times greater memory capacity. BAE Systems North America supplies the mission computer, along with a flight control computer and a head-up display.

The FA-50 will be able to lift stores up to 4.5 tons and its combat radius is given at 444 km. (280 mi.) in a hi-lo-lo-hi profile. Its ferry range is 2,600 km. with three 150-gal. tanks. The F404-GE-102 engine, generating up to 17,700 lb. thrust in reheat, can propel the FA-50 at speeds up to Mach 1.5 and gives the fighter a thrust/weight ratio near one-to-one for air combat.

A single-seat variant with more thrust has been proposed, but so far the air force is showing no interest. Korea Aerospace is also promoting other variants, such as the RA-50 reconnaissance aircraft, EA-50 suppression of enemy air defense aircraft and an airborne controller for unmanned aerial vehicles.


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