South Korea to Sign Contract on KF-X Next Week

South Korea's state arms procurement agency said Thursday it will sign a formal contract next week,around Dec. 28 on its fighter jet development project, known as KF-X.
The Defense Acquisition Procurement Administration plans to ink the deal with Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd.
South Korea hopes to produce its own fighter jet to replace the aging fleet of F-4s and F-5s by mid-2020.
Last month, KAI secured Indonesia's assurance that it will pay for 20 percent of the total cost expected to reach $15 billion.
Under the contract between the DAPA and KAI, six test planes will be manufactured by 2025.
The KF-X project received a boost from the U.S. pledge to transfer some of its jet technologies. But South Korea faces a daunting task of finding an alternative as the U.S. made it clear that four core technologies will be excluded.
Those are the active electronically scanned radar, infrared search-and-rescue system, electro-optical targeting pod and radio frequency jammer.
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