The South Korean government has revised the requirements for its next fighter jet and suggested that it will likely buy the stealth-capable Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35.
Numerous recent media reports out of Seoul said the Defense Ministry’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced plans to purchase 40 aircraft and added stealth technology to the equation in making a selection, the reports said. Deliveries will run from 2018 to 2021, with an option for an additional 20 aircraft from 2023-2024, the reports said.
The new criteria outlined by the Defense Ministry seemed to heavily favor Lockheed Martin and the F-35. Bloomberg news quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok as saying that the F-35 is the “only aircraft that fits requirements” set by the government.
The announcement marked only the most recent twist in the F-X competition, and comes only months after it appeared Boeing’s [BA] F-15E Silent Eagle was poised to win the $7.7 billion contract.
The F-15E proposal was the only one to meet the budget requirement as the F-35 offering failed to do so and the Eurofighter consortium’s Typhoon offering was eliminated on technical grounds.
But the prospect of the F-15E becoming South Korea’s next fighter jet prompted strong public objections from former senior military officers at a time when tension with North Korea was running high.
Officials subsequently announced in September they was scrapping the plans and would revise the competition to seek a fifth generation fighter with stealth and other advanced technologies, as opposed to the older F-15E airframe. Boeing, however, said it the new Silent Eagle variant would incorporate some stealth technologies and contain other new advances.