SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s multi-billion-dollar project to
acquire 60 new combat aircraft is facing delays following controversies
over the fighter jet evaluation methods and mistakes in
how the bids were submitted.
In the latest fiasco, the 8.3 trillion won ($7.2 billion) contest
was postponed June 19, just one day after the three bidders — Lockheed
Martin, Boeing and EADS — submitted their proposals for
the F-X III contest, whose winner is to be announced in October.
That’s because the proposals by Lockheed and EADS failed to meet
translation requirements, according to South Korea’s Defense
Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).
Lockheed is offering the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Boeing the F-15SE Silent Eagle and EADS the Typhoon.
Four of the 24 files Lockheed submitted, related to offset programs
and the prices of key equipment, lacked documents translated into
Korean, while EADS’ 32 files were mostly in English with only
an executive summary in Korean, the agency said in a statement.
The decision fanned the possibility that the fighter procurement plan would not meet its schedule.
“The F-X III selection will be two weeks behind schedule inevitably,
due to the translation problem, which means DAPA’s fighter evaluation,
set to begin early July, is to be postponed,” said Kim
Dae-young, a research member of the Korea Defense & Security
Forum, a private defense think tank here. “We already don’t have much
time for evaluation and price negotiation.”
Earlier, the contest came under controversy over the evaluation
methods planned for the F-35, which has long been considered the
front-runner due to its “fifth-generation” capability.
DAPA’s evaluation team decided to test the F-35 through the use of
simulators, since the U.S. government doesn’t allow pilots from
potential customers to fly the single-engine stealth plane,
which is still about 20 percent of the way through its testing
program.
Critics argue, however, that simulator evaluations cannot prove the
performance of a fighter jet in a proper manner, especially since the
aircraft is still being developed.
Rumor and speculation also arose that the administration of
President Lee Myung-bak is trying to give preference to the U.S. fighter
jet over the Typhoon, the product of Eurofighter, a
four-nation European consortium.
“Unlike the simulation of a commercial airplane, it’s almost
impossible to demonstrate high-mobility features and technologies of a
fighter jet,” said Shin Bo-hyun, head of the Weapons System
Concept Development and Application Research Center at Konkuk
University here.
Shin, a retired South Korean Air Force major general, said, “A big
question is what functions are to be evaluated through simulation, even
though the F-35 program development is still in limbo.”
Facing a barrage of public criticism over the “rough-and-ready”
fighter competition, Noh Dae-rae, commissioner of the DAPA, backed down,
saying the fighter selection schedule could be delayed.
“Making a decision by October is our goal, not an obligation, for
effective negotiations,” Noh said. “But if we need more time to verify
candidates and negotiate with bidders, we’re not really
obliged to that timeline.”
He also hinted that his agency would demand that the U.S. government allow a South Korean pilot to fly an actual F-35.
Lockheed officials still have confidence that their high-fidelity
simulators, including the F-35 manned tactical simulator and handling
qualities simulator, will offer a great deal of access to
the F-35 system.
“In the past, when we have a fighter aircraft with two seats, the
second seat was required to be used for training purposes, but today’s
technology allows us to build a single-seat airplane
because today’s simulators are very precise and accurate,” Randy
Howard, director of Lockheed’s F-35 campaign in South Korea, told
Defense News.
“We’re confident that South Korean pilots can fly our simulators and
fully understand the aerodynamics and operational capabilities of the
F-35,” he added.
Boeing has yet to firm up its arrangements for the F-15SE
evaluation, with doubts hanging over the twin-engine plane’s ability to
perform both traditional and stealthy functions.
“Many of the key capability elements of the Silent Eagle are already
well along with the development as part of the F-15 international
programs that are ongoing,” said Howard Berry, Boeing’s vice
president for sales. “In that point, Korea is actually in a
tremendous position, giving the timing of their acquisition to leverage
other ongoing development activities funded by other F-15
customers worldwide.”
EADS is confident in the F-X III testing and evaluation procedures,
since hundreds of Typhoon fighters have already entered service.
“You can feel a large gap obviously between flying an actual
aircraft and testing simulator programs,” an EADS official said. “We’re
confident in the deal, as long as the competition is to
proceed with fairness.”
The European aerospace giant is proposing that South Korea become
the world’s fifth nation to produce the twin-engine, multirole combat
aircraft, following Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The company links the F-X deal to Seoul’s fighter development plan
codenamed KF-X, aimed at producing more than 200 multirole, stealthy
aircraft.
“Key technology challenges related to the KF-X development are
common to F-X key technologies and enhancement roadmaps,” Thomas
Linkenbach, vice president of air systems portfolio management and
sales for Cassidian, the EADS unit leading the Typhoon campaign in
South Korea, said in a June 19 forum. “F-X procurement offers the best
opportunity for the Republic of Korea to pave the way
towards the technological challenge a fighter development imposes.”
He referred to several fighter technologies that could be
transferred to South Korea. Among them are developing low-observable
configurations, radar signature analysis and testing,
radar-absorbing structure technology, advanced fighter control law
design, and the integration of active electronically scanned array
radars.
