KF-21 5th Aircraft Also Successfully Completes First Flight

Scheduled for Aerial Refueling in the Second Half of the Year Following Avionics Performance Testing

The fifth prototype of the domestically produced supersonic fighter jet KF-21 (Boramae) has successfully completed its maiden flight.

On the 16th, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced that the KF-21 fifth prototype took off at 2:19 PM from the 3rd Training Flight Group in Sacheon, Gyeongnam, and flew over the southern sea for 45 minutes. The control stick was handled by Lee Dong-gyu, a senior test pilot from Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI).

The KF-21 fifth prototype, a single-seat aircraft with one pilot, will be used for testing avionics performance, including the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. An aerial refueling test is also planned for the second half of the year. With this fifth prototype, all four single-seat prototypes (Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 5) have successfully completed test flights. Prototypes 4 and 6 are two-seat models. The fourth prototype made its maiden flight last February, and the sixth prototype is scheduled for test flight in June.

Meanwhile, Indonesia, a co-developer of the KF-21, will receive one fifth prototype that successfully completed the maiden flight along with various technical data once it pays the outstanding contributions. Indonesian military officials currently dispatched to Korea will observe the piloting process of Korean pilots aboard the two-seat KF-21 during future flight training and acquire piloting skills.