MANILA \u2013Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff Gen. Eduardo A\u00f1o confirmed that the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) FA-50PH “Fighting Eagle” jet fighters were blooded in combat during the surgical air and artillery strike that wounded Abu Sayyaf Group commander Isnilon Hapilon last January 26.<\/p>\n
The said attack concentrated on the lair of the bandit leader located in Butig, Lanao Del Sur.<\/p>\n
Aside from severely wounding Hapilon, the AFP chief said around 15 ASG and Maute Group terrorists were also killed.<\/p>\n
He said the ASG leader’s wounds required immediate blood transfusion and is said to be bedridden and being carried by four men as of this posting.<\/p>\n
However, A\u00f1o did not give the exact role the FA-50PHs played in the surgical strike for security and operational reasons.<\/p>\n
The KAI made jet aircraft is armed with 20mm cannons and can carry a variety of air-to-air missiles, rockets and bombs.<\/p>\n
“I cannot discussed the specific role (the FA-50PHs) did in the (Butig strike) but we can say that the FA-50PHs were among the aircraft utilized for (that) operation and even the succeeding ones. What we can say is that the FA-50PHs are very good and efficient (in their assigned role),” the AFP chief said in Filipino.<\/p>\n
A\u00f1o added that the excellent performance of the above-mentioned aircraft belies earlier claims that the FA-50PHs are only good for ceremonial fly-bys.<\/p>\n
“The aircraft can also be used internal security operations and is a good justification for procuring it,” he stressed.<\/p>\n
Currently, the Philippine Air Force (PAF) has four units of the FA-50PHs with another eight units to be delivered this year and the next.<\/p>\n
The PAF has 12-plane order from KAI is worth PHP18.9 billion.<\/p>\n
The FA-50PHs has a top speed of Mach 1.5 or one and a half times the speed of sound and is capable of being fitted air-to-air missiles, including the AIM-9 “Sidewinder” air-to-air and heat-seeking missiles aside from light automatic cannons.<\/p>\n
It will act as the country’s interim fighter until the Philippines get enough experience of operating fast jet assets and money to fund the acquisition of more capable fighter aircraft.<\/p>\n
The FA-50PH design is largely derived from the F-16 “Fighting Falcon”, and they have many similarities: use of a single engine, speed, size, cost, and the range of weapons.<\/p>\n
KAI’s previous engineering experience in license-producing the KF-16 was a starting point for the development of the FA-50PHs.<\/p>\n
The aircraft can carry two pilots in tandem seating. The high-mounted canopy developed by Hankuk Fiber is applied with stretched acrylic, providing the pilots with good visibility, and has been tested to offer the canopy with ballistic protection against four-pound objects impacting at 400 knots.<\/p>\n
The altitude limit is 14,600 meters (48,000 feet), and airframe is designed to last 8,000 hours of service.<\/p>\n
There are seven internal fuel tanks with capacity of 2,655 liters (701 US gallons), five in the fuselage and two in the wings.<\/p>\n
An additional 1,710 liters (452 US gallons) of fuel can be carried in the three external fuel tanks.<\/p>\n
Trainer variants have a paint scheme of white and red, and aerobatic variants white, black, and yellow.<\/p>\n
The FA-50PHs uses a single General Electric F404-102 turbofan engine license-produced by Samsung Techwin, upgraded with a full authority digital engine control system jointly developed by General Electric and KAI.<\/p>\n
The engine consists of three-staged fans, seven axial stage arrangement, and an afterburner.<\/p>\n
Its engine produces a maximum of 78.7 kN (17,700 lbf) of thrust with afterburner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA \u2013Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff Gen. Eduardo A\u00f1o confirmed that the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) FA-50PH “Fighting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[14360,14361],"class_list":["post-87015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-combat-mission","tag-korea-aerospace-industries","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}