KAI KF-21 Boramae (KFX Korean Indigenous Fighter program)

NMaude said:
1-mil precision? That's very good.
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I think it is considered standard precision in military aviation, but it does indeed sound very precise to us normies.

I remember watching a documentary about the assembly of the first Hürjet prototype, and the Montage Manager had mentioned that they were drilling 2,500 holes into the wing with a permeability sensitivity of 25 µm (microns) in a 0.1 mm hole (more or less equal with only a tiny difference of 0.4 µm). So, although it is a standard procedure in aviation, these are indeed really tight tolerances for us.

Screenshot 2025-03-18 234330.png Screenshot 2025-03-18 234344.png

Starts around the 10:30 mark, shockingly the auto-translate in English is actually comprehensible:

View: https://youtu.be/ee6AzgMefNk?feature=shared
 
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VTOLicious said:
Would like to get my hands on a scan of those 3-view drawings...

View attachment 763611
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KAI KF-21 Boramae (Plastic model) - HobbySearch Military Model Store

Our shop retails 1/72 KAI KF-21 Boramae (Plastic model) Academy 12585 Military Model on the Web. [Description of item] - The 4.5th generation jet fighter KF-21 Bora (Wakataka) jointly developed by the Republic of Korea and Indonesia is now available as a 1/72 scale completely new mold snap kit...
www.1999.co.jp

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Shaman Harris said:
Indians called TEBDF 5 minus gen...
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This minus is very annoying, because some of the features of those aircraft are in advance of 5th gen, others don't match; since such planes don't stop to appear(and what does 6 gen minus means - 6 gen but with canards, or non-stealth with 6 gen electronics，or what?).

I'm personally inclining more towards broad "2nd day" category; i.e. a type of workhorse multirole fighter, specified by lower maintenance requirements and higher payload carrying efficiency.
In this case, 2rd day fighter really covers anything not meant for high altitude operations in denied airspace. Regardless of generation, and probably regardless of specific level of stealth.


Like in the past, there could be a day fighter of 2nd, 3rd or even 4th generation(original YF-16 ... and probably F-16 itself, until AIM-7/amraam). Or, technically, there *could* be a pre-5th gen stealth fighter(F-117X), it just wasn't born. Or which generation of fighter was Sea Harrier mk.2?

Generation, as a term, implies certain period of time, or certain technology. KF-21(or indeed TEDBF) are of course the worst offenders here, but Gripen E/F is also somewhere around, as is Tejas Mk.2. Too much incoherent, inconsistent minuses and pluses(4.5? 4.75? What next, 4.875?).
 
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Don´t forget that Russia still had S400 in Ukraine a couple hundred days past the 2nd... ;)
But I can understand that approach. It makes somewhat sense, apart from the strong emphasis on something we know is an unrealistic scenario. Why not simply call them what they are: a 100, 200 or 500 nautical miles generations...

Don´t want to be hard. Semi-Stealth makes sense and is relevant when you can afford qty and attrition. Ukraine could probably have win the Air battle if they had a couple of hundred Mig29 and the pilots that goes with it .*

*That´s why I am furious French President, Mr Macron, dilapidated the french air force aircraft reserve of... a couple hundred of Mirage F-1 that would have stood the fight nearly as much as Ukraine owned Russian derelict Mig29s. Qty matters.
 
TomcatViP said:
Don´t forget that Russia still had S400 in Ukraine a couple hundred days past the 2nd... ;)
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Yeah, day here is more of description of operational environment.

1st day can maintain controllable loss rate against active SAM network, and can operate continuously over suppresed environment. It is, however, unavoidably hampered by the requirements of this capability.
2nd day can maintain controllable loss rate over suppresed environment, and can operate continuosly outside of effective enemy SAM coverage.
There may be better term, just not five minus, pretty pretty please.
 
Ainen said:
This minus is very annoying, because some of the features of those aircraft are in advance of 5th gen, others don't match; since such planes don't stop to appear(and what does 6 gen minus means - 6 gen but with canards, or non-stealth with 6 gen electronics，or what?).
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Ainen said:
Generation, as a term, implies certain period of time, or certain technology. KF-21(or indeed TEDBF) are of course the worst offenders here, but Gripen E/F is also somewhere around, as is Tejas Mk.2. Too much incoherent, inconsistent minuses and pluses(4.5? 4.75? What next, 4.875?).
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It's just giving too much attention to marketing or fan antics. Be it a planform-aligned, LO-looking (doesn't mean it actually is LO) fighter or not, KF-21 is clearly a 4.5th gen fighter. KAI calles it that way, ROKAF calls it that way, and its mission systems are designed that way, so that it operates like a proper 4.5th gen fighter.

I think that the taxonomy of fighter generations is one of the better defined "generations" out there, and we don't need any of these "4.5th gen +, ++, 4.75th gen, 5th gen -," so on and so forth, whatever bullshit.
 
Maro.Kyo said:
It's just giving too much attention to marketing or fan antics. Be it a planform-aligned, LO-looking (doesn't mean it actually is LO) fighter or not, KF-21 is clearly a 4.5th gen fighter. KAI calles it that way, ROKAF calls it that way, and its mission systems are designed that way, so that it operates like a proper 4.5th gen fighter.

I think that the taxonomy of fighter generations is one of the better defined "generations" out there, and we don't need any of these "4.5th gen +, ++, 4.75th gen, 5th gen -," so on and so forth, whatever bullshit.
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I want to disagree with that, because 4.5 has been defined in the past as "4th generation with modifications to reduce RCS" (prime examples being Rafale and Super Hornet).

I want to call it 4.75 generation because the airframe appears to be LO-shaped, but it has a bunch of 4th gen parts still in it.

KF-21 is clearly intended as LO by airframe shaping. They had the assistance of LockMart, to at least say "it took us a really long time to figure that out" in terms of what technologies to avoid in order to get the plane flying sooner. I'm specifically thinking of the skin-integrated antennas like the F-35 has but the KF-21 explicitly does not as an example here, and quite possibly a supersonic weapons bay.

I'm assuming that the avionics are on par with F-35. Not the same as, but of similar capability aside from applique antennas instead of integrated.

Yes, the first couple iterations are not using an internal weapons bay. IIRC it's the third production block that is intended to have the bay working.

It's also got 4th gen engines right now. IIRC there was an intention to make F414-sized supercruising engines.

LO shaping plus internal weapons plus 5th gen avionics plus 5th gen engines equals 5th gen aircraft, right?
 


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