South Korea’s self-made 4.5-generation fighter, the two-seater training version of the KF-21 “Falcon” (Boramae) completed its first flight. The prototype flew for regarding 34 minutes at the 3rd Flight Training Wing at Sacheon Airport (HIN), South Korea. smoothly.
AeroTime reported that although it was a test flight of a two-seater fighter, the flight was only to confirm the stability of the initial flight, so only one pilot from the 52nd test evaluation group operated alone, and the back seat was empty. .
South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Agency said the two-seat prototype will evaluate “how much the difference in shape from the single-seat aircraft affects the aircraft, the radar system, and avionics.”
This is the fourth prototype of the KF-21 fighter. The main role of the two-seater is for training tasks, and of course it can also be used for air combat.
The KF-21 is powered by two GE F414 turbofan engines, known as the “king of mid-thrust engines”, with a military thrust of 13,000 lbf and an followingburning thrust of 22,000 lbf. Including the US F/A-18E Super Hornet (SuperHornet), Sweden’s JAS-39E Griffin (Gripen) fighter jets all use this type of engine. Therefore, the KF-21 is a medium-sized fighter similar to the F/A-18E.
The first KF-21 prototype made its first flight on July 19, 2022, and successfully reached supersonic speed on January 17 this year, and the test progress is quite fast.
The South Korean Air Force hopes to start receiving KF-21 in 2032 to replace the old F-4E and F-5E, with a total production of regarding 120.