30 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

What Countries Lead In Developing Next-Gen Combat Aircraft?

Tony Osborne July 29, 2020

Aviation Week's July 16 webinar on the future of combat aircraft mentioned British, French-German and Japanese fifth- and sixth-generation developments. Are there any others on the radar, such as Turkey or South Korea? Will these quieter players be able to pull the rabbit from the hat as the Turks have done with UAVs in Libya and Syria?

London Bureau Chief Tony Osborne responds:

Had we had more time during the webinar, we would have talked more about developments from Turkey and South Korea—in particular, the Turkish Aerospace Industries TF-X and Korea Aerospace Industries' KF-X. Taiwan and Pakistan are also making investments in fighter technologies, although their progress is not as mature.

Turkey benefits from having a capable partner in BAE Systems to support the design process, and I believe they could produce a combat aircraft in the next 5-10 years. The Turkish electronics industry is well advanced, and Turkish Aerospace is growing its capabilities fairly rapidly.

The biggest question is around development of engine technologies: Turkey wants an indigenous 25,000-30,000-lb. engine to power the TF-X. Although Turkey is not starting from scratch—given its experience on General Electric engines for the F-16—it has a long way to go before it can produce a reliable, locally developed powerplant. Without that, Turkey will have difficulty exporting such an aircraft. Surety of supply for a foreign engine, especially from the U.S., is doubtful given the political strains between the two countries.

In South Korea, it is a slightly different story. Its platform will use a U.S.-supplied engine, and given the close relationship between South Korea and the U.S., there is that surety of supply. Time will tell whether that will change when it comes to exporting the KF-X. With assembly of the first prototype well underway, South Korea appears to be making strong progress. We are still waiting for metal to be cut.

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/what-countries-lead-developing-next-gen-combat-aircraft

Sur le même sujet

  • Thales to reinforce Indonesia’s sovereign airspace protection capabilities with PT LEN

    19 juin 2023 | International, C4ISR

    Thales to reinforce Indonesia’s sovereign airspace protection capabilities with PT LEN

    Renowned for the performance of detecting threats at long range and low altitude, the GM400 Alpha provides superior situational awareness for early detection helping armed forces enhance airspace sovereignty

  • Britain to produce drone strategy by year’s end

    12 septembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

    Britain to produce drone strategy by year’s end

    This the latest in a rash of strategy documents recently produced by the country focused on the land, air and sea domains of warfare.

  • L'OTAN choisit Thales pour équiper son futur cloud de défense

    26 janvier 2021 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

    L'OTAN choisit Thales pour équiper son futur cloud de défense

    L'OTAN a sélectionné l'offre Nexium Defence Cloud de Thales afin de déployer le cloud de ses futurs centres de commandement modulaires. La technologie de Thales doit offrir une interopérabilité et une communication ultra-sécurisée entre le centre de commandement et les thé'tres d'opérations, et accélérer la transformation numérique des forces armées coalisées. Déployable en moins de 24 heures, la solution Nexium Defence Cloud permet à l'OTAN de réduire le nombre de ses ingénieurs informatiques sur sites, gr'ce à son système d'orchestration, en réduisant les déploiements des services informatiques et applicatifs de sites distants de plusieurs milliers de kilomètres à quelques heures, avec un nombre d'experts limité. « Basée sur une approche globale incluant à la fois la gestion des applications, l'IT (Information Technology), les réseaux et la sécurité, cette solution repose également sur une architecture adaptée pour divers niveaux de confidentialité », précise Thales. « Cette solution, la plus compacte, intégrée et modulaire du marché, inclut tous les constituants des postes de commandements militaires (caissons, serveurs, stockage de données, système de supervision...), répondant au niveau de performance exigé en termes de volume, taille, poids et consommation énergétique, simplifiant la logistique de déploiement », explique le groupe. Ensemble de la presse du 26 janvier

Toutes les nouvelles