S. Korea says 'NO' to Boeing, 'YES' to Lockheed... Reversal

South Korea reverses decision to buy Boeing F-15 Silent Eagles in favor of Lockheed F-35As for stealth reasons.

By Joyce Lee and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's government bowed to public pressure on Tuesday and voted down a bid by Boeing (BA) to supply 60 warplanes, saying it would restart the multi-billion tender process to get a more advanced, radar-evading fighter.

Lockheed Martin's (LMT) F-35A, previously considered too expensive, has shot to the front of the line in the race for the contract after the defence ministry singled out a fifth-generation fighter as the preferred option.

The fifth generation F-35A, complete with its hi-tech stealth capability, has already been ordered by the United States and seven other countries, including Japan and Israel.

Boeing's F-15 Silent Eagle, the only bid within budget, had been poised to win the 8.3 trillion won ($7.7 billion) tender. But former military top brass and ruling party lawmakers had criticised the plane for lacking stealth capabilities.

"Our air force thinks that we need combat capabilities in response to the latest trend of aerospace technology development centered around the fifth generation fighter jets and to provocations from North Korea," defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters.

Experts said the phrasing of that statement meant Boeing had a slim chance in the next round. While the F-15 Silent Eagle offered passive stealth, its electronic warfare equipment left it visible to adversaries.

A third bid by the Eurofighter consortium's Typhoon was also ruled out for going over the finance ministry's budget. Under South Korean law, only bids under budget are eligible to win defence contracts.

Experts said a deal with Boeing or Lockheed Martin was most likely because of South Korea's close military alliance with the United States against the belligerent North.

The South Korean government and air force will map out a fresh tender process and consider a new budget, possibly reducing the number of planes sought to 40 or 50.

The defence ministry said it could take around one year to complete the new tender round.

"DAPA...will swiftly pursue the program again in order to minimize the vacuum in combat capabilities," South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), which led the assessment of the fighters, said in a statement.

FRESH START FOR LOCKHEED

The collapse of the deal means a fresh start to Lockheed Martin, which has recently taken a new order from the Netherlands for the F-35. Britain, Australia, Italy, Norway, Israel and Japan have also placed orders.

Lockheed has set its sights on additional orders from Norway, Britain and Turkey before year's end.

Increased production of the F-35 aircraft could allow the U.S. government and Lockheed to lower the tender bid. A U.S. Air Force general vowed this month to keep lowering the cost to build and operate the F-35.

"We will continue to support the U.S. government in its offer of the F-35A to Korea," Lockheed Martin's South Korean representative said after the decision.

In Washington, the Pentagon's F-35 program office said it had not been officially notified of South Korea's decision, but was ready to support Seoul's efforts to buy a fighter jet.

U.S. military officials say the biggest strength of the F-35, in addition to radar-evading coatings and configuration, is its ability to fuse data from other aircraft and sensors. This allows it to help identify targets for other fighters, and essentially command the battlefield.

Richard Aboulafia with the Virginia-based Teal Group said the decision was bad news for Boeing, which is bracing for slowing production of other aircraft, including its C-17 transport plane and F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter.

He said there was still a small chance that South Korea could decide to buy an additional squadron of F-15K fighters.

Boeing said in a statement it was deeply disappointed by the decision. The company has spent significant sums to develop the Silent Eagle variant of the F-15 and has cultivated strong ties to South Korean industry.

"We await details from DAPA on its basis for the delay while evaluating our next options," Boeing said.

A DAPA official said South Korea had followed the rules in the bidding process, but declined to comment on possible legal action by Boeing.

A local representative of the Eurofighter consortium said it would participate when the project restarted.

The DAPA had estimated that any delay in the tender process could leave the South Korean air force 100 fighters short of the 430 jets deemed necessary by 2019.

Last month, 15 South Korean former air force chiefs signed a petition opposing selection of the F-15, saying it lacked stealth capabilities of more modern aircraft.

($1 = 1073.9500 Korean won)

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and David Gregorio)

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Has Boeing sold ANY Silent Eagles? Anyone know?


Looks like South Korea and Japan have pretty much said "no'.

Israel said "We'll let you know... don't call us".


Everyone seems to be lusting after the F-35...

 

As has been said before, you cannot add stealth to an existing design; it must be designed in.

One might say: look at the stealthy Blackhawks used on the bin Laden raid, but I've not seen anyone give any indication as to how "stealthy" they really were.

I would bet that eventually North Korea would get some of China's new stealthy fighters, and it would make sense that South Korea would want something in the same class, at least when it comes to stealth.

 

great new for my Lockheed stock.

 

Jim- We had a special F-111 at the 431 TES, glued together from an F-111D and an F-111F that had been in accidents. That aircraft was stealth modified and had a useful reduction in radar cross section. I flew several sorties in it against systems that could measure radar cross section. So you cannot take a non-stealthy aircraft and make it as stealthy as one designed from scratch, but you can reduce the radar cross section usefully. The F-111 was one of the first aircraft with stealth features, primarily RAM in the intakes, way before that was fashionable or well understood. By end of life, most F-111s had aluminum strips rivetted across the RAM material to prevent it delaminating and going down the intake.

Incidentally, L-M was thrown out because they could not meet South Korea's budget. So what the Koreans are saying is we want a Cadillac fighter, but we only want to pay a Chevrolet price. Doubt if L-M is going to give them away, so they may have to lower the number of fighters they are considering or cough up more money. They can afford it.

 

Of course, as others buy more F-35s, the price per unit will continue to drop (in constant dollars).

 

Jim- Affirmative, and the Koreans have dragged their feet so much on this acquisition program, they may be able to take advantage of those reductions. Depends on how hungry L-M is. I forget what kind of offsets the Koreans were demanding and I am sure that also affects how L-M will rebid.

They sure wasted a bunch of Boeing's time and money.

 

Are you sure about that? Supposedly the cost has gone up for the USAF by 70% and they're also getting 400 fewer aircraft.

Anyway, Vanity Fair just did an article (long article)

Will the F-35, the U.S. Military?s Flaw-Filled, Years-Overdue Joint Strike Fighter, Ever Actually Fly? | Vanity Fair

A colossal **** up to say the least!

 

That's a frightening article... even the wikipedia article is frightening... what a mess.

 

What a stilted article. Vanity Fari is not where I would look for aviation information.

Prices on the early production blocks have been dropping.

 

But is any or even a large part of what they're reporting inaccurate? Because it all looks fairly accurate, including lots of quotes and facts on what's occurring with the F-35 including operations and limitations.

 

Nobody is going to buy the F-15SE. A real prototype was never produced. The regular af, does not want the SE to infringe on the pet stealth airplanes.



It would be a good idea to purchase some of the bolt-on (kit) components and upgrade the existing F-15 fleets. It will take a long time for the F-15 to be completely replaced.

 

Right now USAF is considering retiring the entire F-15C, A-10, and KC-10 fleets.

 

But isn't the F-35A inferior to the Su-35s?

 

The F-35's counterpart on the "other side" would be the MiG-29. The F-22 would be the analogue to the Su-27/35.

 

Yes, but the F-35A could be sharing the same theatre with the Su-35s as well. And would/does S. Korea have F-22s? Being the F-35 underdog without F-22 friends isn't a good thing in such a situation.

 

I would think that, if the need arises, the F-22s would be there in a flash, probably operating (as they have in the past) out of Okinawa.

 

was the f111 not the last disaterous attempt at a single plane to do all. Overweight over budget and underperforming. The more things change the more thye remain the same.

The logic is so flawed here. The a10 is a rleatively inexpensive robust aircraft economical to run. Now we are trying to use the second moste xpesive aircraft to do the same job. Maybe we need some robust inelegant planes for doing some more normal stuff and the top end for high end stuff.

 

All of these airplanes should be transferred to the ANG.

It will cost less money to keep the airplanes in the Air Guard.



KC-10 carries both cargo and gas.

The soldiers will miss the A-10.

The AF never cared for the Warthog.

F-111 became a superb deep on-the-deck interdictor with legs and speed.

 

Never seen such apparent disarray and cross-purposes in the military including post vietnam. Material wise we seem to be threadbare except in MBT's. And just yesterday there was a story on cnbc that said a lot of general's were advocating a reduction of 140,000 gi's for the Army, right after the stories of the past 3 years where the army was supposed to be exhausted from so many tours. I'm glad we are heading towards energy independence despite the fed's.

 

No comparison, really, between Gen 4 and Gen 5 aircraft. If you can see him at 3-4 times the radar range he can see you, he is toast, regardless of any performance envelope advantages. Unless he has overwhelming numerical superiority and can afford the early heavy losses. And that is not even counting on help from our Patriot friends. Gen 4 very vulnerable to SAMs, even with ECM, Gen 5 not very vulnerable, even without ECM.

 

The only problem mentioned in the Vanity Fair article which is still valid, IMO, is the software issues, but that is true with any new military aircraft; the F-22 had them and I don't believe even now that its software is where the Air Force would like it.

The aircraft is performing very well in testing; I've seen footage recently of high-AoA tests and weapons carriage and deployment and all seems to be progressing well. The STOVL version has undergone a lot of testing at sea, including operations with a weapons load and operations at night, and they've done full vertical takeoffs on land (which, admittedly, will probably see more use at airshows than in normal service).

I've had my doubts about the F-35, but all concerned seem to be working hard to overcome the early problems and get the aircraft into service. There are predictions of significant new orders over the next year or so.

 

Like South Korea, for instance... which is where this thread started.

 

Jim- Do you work for L-M or one of their contractors? You are right in the heart of L-M land down there. Martin-Marietta in the olden days.

 

Some videos that will tell you about F-35 progress, at least for the B variant:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBI7uiDQA6Y]British Pilot & Maintainer Test F-35B on USS Wasp - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K50UVd-cdo]F-35B Twilight Operations on the USS Wasp - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW72dBp5DBM]F-35B Accomplishes First Night Vertical Landing Aboard USS WASP - YouTube[/ame]