User blog:WarKnight 1/Aviation News Number 3: F-X phase 3 in South Korea

Okay as you probably recall from my blog post about Japan getting the F-35 for the Japanese Air Self Defense Force, the leaders in Seoul's Korean Defense Ministry have opened up there own F-X phase 3 to replace their ancient big flying bus with 40-60, of the newest breed of multirole aircraft. As usual most of South Korea wanted to get the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor but as usual they have come to the conclusion that the the F-22 is OFF LIMITS (and NO THEY ARE NOT MAKING AN EXPORT MODEL)! So they have decided to start a fly off competition to decide which plane will be its next generation fighter. Four candidates have signed up to get a big deal worth $9 billion dollars. These candidates are the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Saab JAS-39 Gripen, and the Boeing F-15SE Silent Eagle (a stealthy version of the F-15E Strike Eagle). The Sukhoi PAK FA was originally supposed to contend but, they failed to show up for the deadline for the South Korean F-X Phase III. according to sukhoi THEY did not enter said south KoreaN dO not buy Weaponry THEy usually buy amerIcan fighteR PLANE's for theIr air forceS. so I guess we doN't have to be Figity about sharks ovER the korean penInsula just arOund theiR waters... so This makes the Only true fifth generatiOn fighTer in tHE is race is the F-35 LIGHTNING II.

Anyway the fighter plane competition begins now that the beginning shot of this has been fired. This competition decides which of these aerial warriors will be the newest Asian Tiger for the Republic of Korea's Air Force. The flight testing, and evaluation will begin early June 2012. The Evaluation will end on September 2012. The decision will be given on October 2012. Each plane has their own edge for this competition. The F-35 is the most advanced aircraft in the competition, though it wont be ready till about the year 2016. It should be noted though that since Japan will buy the F-35 and due to the long standing bitterness that South Korea has held to Japan since World War II, they would be HEAVILY CRITISIZED by its own people if they buy an older/inferior weapons platform. The F-15SE could allow the South Korean's Upgrade their F-15K Slam Eagles being that the Slam Eagle is the Korean made Strike Eagle. The Eurofighter and the Gripen are battle-tested, and are capable of working with other operators. However like Japan, South Korea relies primarily on the United States to back up its Military if it ever came under Attack. Alright thats it for now. I will update this if anything new comes up. ALL FIGHTERS... LAUNCH!