New Competitor to Israeli Defense Industry

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The Republic of Korea has a long-term ambition to develop a domestic fighter aircraft, including relevant avionic equipment such as AESA radar. Now, the Swedish company Saab has received an order for support of algorithm development and evaluation of airborne AESA radar for South Korea’s indigenous KF-X fighter jet. For Saab, the present contract is an important milestone, and shows that Saab is an important partner in the longer term for Republic of Korean authorities and industry, according to defenseworld.net.

The move turns Sweden into a new competition with the Israeli defense industry. This type of radar is manufactured by Elta, an IAI subsidiary, while South Korea is now cooperating with Sweden in this field.

Seoul was developing its locally-made fighter jet, initially named as KF-X, with support from Lockheed Martin but the US government denied it four critical technologies including that of the AESA radar. The Koreans then vowed to develop the technologies on their own.

South Korea has roped in Indonesia as a partner in the KF-X fighter jet program in which the latter is to fund a part of the program in exchange for the rights to manufacture some of the aircraft.

The radar development program is led by the Korean Agency for Defence Development (ADD) and Saab will work in cooperation with ADD and its contractual partner LIG Nex1. The order value is MSEK 125 (US$25 million). LIG Nex1, based in Seoul, develops and produces a wide range of advanced precision electronic systems.

“We are proud to be part of the airborne AESA radar development program. This further proves our position as the leading provider and partner to develop the latest fighter aircraft technology and sub systems”, says Anders Carp, head of Saab’s business area Surveillance. “One of our objectives is to partner with Republic of Korean industry and government to support the development of a domestic fighter”.