New or used?

Thought the manufacturing line had already close and it's going to be phase out by 2030?

Used lah if its donated.

Don't know actually but Thales just unveiled a new variant the Bushmaster MR6.

Yes you are correct. Korean Air Force wants both the upgraded FA-50 and KFX for different things.

ROKAF wants the FA-50 to be their LCA, to replace all their F-5E, and also take up F-4 tasks.

ROKAF wants the KFX to be their MMRCA, to replace the bulk of its F-16 fleet. It is designed to have a cheaper operating cost than the F-35.

TUDM can do the same, FA-50 as the LCA to replace our hawks and MB-339, and take up MiG-29 tasks, while the KFX as the MMRCA to replace our Hornets.

Actually currently the Phillipine government for now wants to buy the Gripen C because it is cheaper than the F-16V, which is unfortunate as there is very little difference in performance between FA-50 and Gripen C, especially compared to the upgraded FA-50 Block 20.

F-16V with conformal fuel tanks will give phillipines a long range combat air patrol capability. TUDM already have the capability with the very long range SU-30MKM.

I agree. FA-50 even with AMRAAM is not a direct competitor to F-16 (longer range and heavier weapons payload) or F-35 (stealth capability).

We don't know what pinoys want. Could also be a way of patching up US-Phils relations.

TUDM as darth5zaft pointed out has a realistic LCA budget of about Usd 1.5 billion. If we want something in the region of 30 aircraft, that means we are only ever going to buy the FA-50 Blk 20 or M346FA or equivalent class of aircraft, period.

TUDM best option - 12 nos T/A-50 for LIFT and 24 F/A-50 for LCA

The FA-50 Block 20 has almost no hardware changes, except for the refueling probe. All the upgrade to carry targeting pod and BVR are just software related. Our LCA/LIFT requirement is for 36 aircraft in total, so 35 million per aircraft is possible.


Malaysia needs LCA to replace our Hawks while the philippines already got their FA-50. Malaysia still got our Hornets and SU-30MKM, while the philippines have no MRCA. That is the difference.


We don't have the luxury to waste money on underwhelming products for our requirements, even more so now. RM5 billion is just 1.2 billion dollars. So we just have around 2.4 billion dollars to play with until 2030. That have not taken into account the money we have spent on COVID 19 that surely has to be taken from somewhere. It would be a miracle if we can have the same budget as before, what more an increased one.

So can malaysia afford to implement your 18 M346 + 18 F-35A plan? With the budget that we usually got, malaysia can barely pay half of your want with a 10 year budget.


Used F/A-18 is at best usable for only 10 years. New LCA now will be useful for at least 30 more years.

Getting the hardware is one thing, operating it is another. F/A-18 operating costs is at least 3 times of the FA-50. No use if we cannot fly them regularly.

Even right now, from all available information, the T-7 performance is actually worse then the FA-50. Things like the extremely small nose to fit any radar, maximum speed of only 1,300 km/h, removal of most fighting capability in its design phase to reduce cost will make it nearly impossible to be modified into a better fighter than the FA-50. That thing only won because of the need to give Boeing some jobs, while Lockheed martin already got F-35 and F-16 on its plate.

RAAF and RAF probably going to get the T-7, but purely for training role. We need our LCA as the best LCA possible, while still be the best FLIT. Also we need the LCA like now, not in 10 years time.

memang betul, tengok pembelian Hornet dah la. 100% political purchase
selain tu tengok juga commonality ngan negara jiran juga esp bukan jenis front-role fighter ni
tu pasal negara2 jiran pun jenis2 lebih kurang je


tapi fanboi-fanboi ni mana nampak semua tu
tp mcm KLthinker91 cakap pun ye juga corruption tu satu faktor aku malas nak ulas sangat pasal /k ni tak selamat

kalau kroagn rajin bleh trace local agent tu punya company satu mesti jumpa sikit ada kaitan politik mesti adaaa

government ada requirement depa biasanya offset ekonomi, mesti la pasal depa nak keluarkan duit yang banyak mesti nak pulangan.

Which is why I have asked, for the same amount of money, can we afford not to get the FA-50 block 20?


12 TA-50 at 30 million dollars each = 360 million dollars

24 FA-50 at 35 million dollars each = 840 million dollars

total of 1.2 billion dollars.

Antara pembelian yg paling berbaloi kepada negara.

Tak ada orang tengah, pembelian FMS.

Offset pembelian hornet kepada negara ialah pemberian mesin CNC rapid prototyping paling canggih pada zaman 90an yang diletakkan di technology park malaysia bukit jalil. Daripada mesin rapid prototyping ni lah kita dapat buat proton Gen-2, Waja.

With the 1.5B budget, most can get will be the F/A-50 not the Block 20.

Other offsets that I can remember

BAe Hawk
Given the IP rights and toolings of MD-3 aerotiga
Given the IP rights to Bulldog trainer.
Given weapons pylon manufacturing for all Hawks.
Given havard trainer aircraft to TUDM museum.

with offsets malaysia has become one of the biggest aerospace component manufacturer in south east asia, with sales worth more than 1 billion dollars annually.

Indonesia might be proud of having own aircraft, but their sales are less than 100 million dollars per year.

Malaysia is now one of the biggest aerospace composite parts manufacturer in the world (ACM Kedah and CTRM Melaka), while also producing metallic aero structures (Spirit aerosystems) and advanced metallurgic jet engine components (UMW aerospace). In a nutshell, our aerospace industry can be said to be much more advanced then Indonesia while contributing billions to malaysian economy.

more likely to be ~50 million per block 20 plus few millions more for pods etc. and you have forgotten that we also need to replace the existing trainers

so, it's more something like:

12 LIFT x 30 million to support Su30/F18 force = 360 million

18 FA/50 x 50 million = 900 million

8 LIFT x 30 million to support FA50 force = 240 million

total = 1.5 billion

We don't need 8 LIFT exclusively for FA-50.

Currently we have 5 Hawk 2 seater + 7 unoperational MB-339CM 2 seater.

12 TA-50 is enough. The Golden eagle comes with highly sophisticated full motion simulators and VR simulators. It is far cry from old training systems.



As I said previously, the FA-50 Block 20 has almost no hardware changes, except for the refueling probe. All the upgrade to carry targeting pod and BVR are just software related. Our LCA/LIFT requirement is for 36 aircraft in total, so 35 million per aircraft is possible.

" A KAI senior manager told AIN in an exclusive interview that work started in October 2018 and that the project aims to be completed no later than 2021. He added that current FA-50 users can still benefit from the software upgrade and that no physical modifications are to be made to the aircraft.

The manager also revealed that an FA-50 Block 20 is in the works, and development will begin starting this year. Block 20 will give the FA-50 the capability to conduct beyond-visual-range air-to-air missions, carrying munitions such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM. As with the Block 10, there is no requirement to modify the radar of the FA-50. "

Tak ada orang tengah untuk aset dari US
tu pasal zaman atok dia tak suka bararang dari US

Hornet seriously mula2 sampai tagune juga
but when SEA issues are escalated baru US kurangkan restriction tuk Hornet

we can assume the Hawks and Mb339s are out of the picture by the time the T-50s arrive

12 T-50s can't support 18 SU-30s, 8 F-18s, and 24 FA-50s. I'm not aware that the new T-50 can generate more training hours than other AJTs.

35 million won't get you Block 20 as it is the current price of non-Block 20. You must assume the additional e.g. software upgrades will be included in the future price tag.

Why can't 12 TA-50 support the training of our whole airforce?

Thailand, with 100++ fighter aircraft, will do it with 14 T-50TH

FA-50 pilots also can straight away go from TA-50 without needing any OCU training as it is the same aircraft.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/07/11/...rders-for-258m/




https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-det...attack-aircraft

The block 20 is being paid for by ROKAF as it plans to use the FA-50 to replace F-5 tiger and F-4 phantom roles. Most of it are just software differences.

about softwares. if we buy the Block 20, it will be from day 1 uploaded with the latest software, so we don't need to pay more to upgrade the software. any differences in cost will be minimal. Probably 1-2 million difference, if any.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 10 2021, 01:36 PM

Why compare with Thais who have doubtful training and readiness levels throughout?

True or not, I don't know but that still means operational FA-50 pilots must have jet trainers of some kind. They cannot go from Pilatus straight to operations. And you cannot use FA-50s for both training and operations; if you do, you will be using up their flight hours as if you bought another T-50 anyway.

Okay give me another comparison. Anyway isn't the thais who whooped chinese a$$ in air combat exercise?


every fighter pilot will go through TA-50 training, but those who will go to fly the FA-50 next will need no additional OCU training as the aircraft is the same. Right now we are training 24 fighter pilots a year using rented old crappy planes (just 6 of them) in canada. So why isn't it enough to use 12 highly advanced supersonic AJT instead?



Also all FA-50 is twin seater. You can fly both a rookie and a seasoned pilot on every operational flight. so 2 pilots can log flight hours on every flight (to build up operational experience, not for basic training), unlike a single seater fighter aircraft. So no issue of using up flight hours of the FA-50.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 10 2021, 02:22 PM

^^
Well, the Thai whoops Chinese ass mostly thanks to their superior jet technology.

If you say it like that then Boeing is the obvious choice lah. Leonardo is a distance 2nd since they somewhat manufacture ATR72.

Korean currently has no commercial plane products. So on top of subsidizing the R&D cost for FA50 block 20, they would need to offer manufacturing offset so we would manufacture some parts of their jet components. But if they are willing. Then great.

The used FA18 can be used for the next 10 years before a competent arms version of T7 is develop.

Thought 1 of the most interesting aspect of KAI is the usage of common fuselage for all Korean helicopter need. The surion seem a bit too big, but something like H160M seems good enough



This post has been edited by darth5zaft: Sep 10 2021, 03:18 PM

offsets does not need to be aerospace related, as was the offset for the hornets.

korea has plenty of electronic industries (samsung, LG), automotive (hyundai-kia) and petrochemical too (like lotte chemical). They want an exit from china (due to american sanctions) and the offsets could be by encouraging then to sett up new factories in malaysia or JV with malaysian companies like silterra.



Do we have the money to operate 24 Hornets regularly instead of say 24 FA-50 for 10 years? Look at my previous post below

To operate F/A-18 - 150 million euro times 10 years. That is 1.5 billion euro.

To operate FA-50 - 60 million euro times 10 years. That is only 600 million euro. Say 24 FA-50 will cost 800 million euro. So buying 24 FA-50 plus operating them for 10 years will cost 1.4 billion euro.

If you operate F/A-18, you will burn 1.5 billion euro then after 10 years will need to buy T-7. Even if T-7 is the same price as FA-50, that is in total 2.3 billion needed.

A difference of 0.9 billion euro, which can be better spent to buy MRCA instead.



KAI has 2 types of helicopter being built for korean armed forces.

first is the Surion which is basically a licence built puma.



second is the LAH which is a licence built dauphin. which is a scary thought as china also fields license built dauphins in its army.

Which one is chinese and which one is korean?




Anyway another offset that we could ask the koreans for LCA/FLIT is their relatively new but going to be retired 100+ blackhawks. Korea has decided not to do overhaul to its Blackhawks which is just around 20 years old and instead replace them all with Surions to support the korean aerospace industry.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pac...-says-lawmaker/



Korea has done the same kind of offsets before, like giving free pohang corvettes to Philippines when they buy Hyundai frigates.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 10 2021, 05:18 PM