Top 10 Most Powerful Military Vehicles of the Republic of Korea Army!

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. On the 19th of July 2022, the brand new KF-21 Borami Stealth Fighter or Fighting Hawk took to the skies from Sacheon Air Base near Busan. You know, where that train goes. Many experts are wondering if the KF-21 will be a game changer for the future of the military aviation market or just an expensive flex for the Korean defence industry. This joint project of South Korea and Indonesia has been plagued with issues throughout the years and many doubted its purpose or its feasibility. But the successful development of the T-50 and subsequent F-A-50 combat variant, KAI or Korean Aerospace Industry proved that they're quite With a breakthrough into the European market with Poland acquiring 48 of the jet, the future looks bright for the Korean defence industry and terrifying for South Korea's enemies. Now the story of the KF-21 or better say the KF-X starts way back in early 2000s, 2002 to be exact, but it wasn't until one huge event that it really kicked it off with a bang. In 2010, North and South Korea were at the brink of war with artillery fire being exchanged over the 38th parallel and the Korean government realised it needed a new jet yesterday. It pushed forward with the development of the KF-X program now determined to acquire some serious firepower for a conflict that had been looming in the air for almost 50 years. Several variants were proposed for this new Korean jet, the C-103, a two-engine jet resembling an F-35 or the C-203, which resembled a Eurofighter or the future Chinese J-20. There was also the C-501, which was the least complex version with a single engine. In the end, the C-103 design family was chosen because single engine jets couldn't fulfil the requirements set by the government and the C-203 design family was abandoned because a deal fell through with potential European partners. If they weren't going to exchange technology, then there was no chance that they were going to develop themselves. Remember, speed is of the essence. From here, the development of the C-103 family changed throughout the years. Notice how the design morphed more and more from an F-35 to the F-22 Raptor and the final, the C-109, which was approved for the prototype phase, bears a striking resemblance to the F-22, giving it the nickname the Korean Raptor. But there are also some other features about this jet that really do make it a game changer. Looking for a website for a business, project, or even an aviation-themed YouTube channel, just like the one you're watching? Then Squarespace is your answer. Squarespace websites are already optimised for mobile phones, have the ability to run powerful email campaigns, and they have a fantastic e-commerce tech built right into their framework, getting you into business right away. Plus, they have all the SEO tools that you would need to appear in the top results of Google. Trust me, Squarespace is the best. To launch your own site, go to www.squarespace.com and get 10% off your first site and domain. Back to the show. The KF-21 is powered by two GE F414 engines, a further development of the engines that were used for the Super Hornet. And as it's using so much of the existing templates from American jets, it actually has roughly the same dimensions as an F-35. And that's exactly the point. The design is very similar to the F-22 and F-35 because they partnered with Lockheed for this development. Lockheed transferred a lot of technologies for the KF-21 apart from some key components like radar, IRST, target pods, and RF jammers, which the Koreans were pushed to develop themselves, which they actually did with Flying Colors. But it's at this point that the project actually steps away from the F-22 and F-35 design philosophy. The weird thing is about the KF-21 is the fact that there is no internal weapons bay, which begs some questions about if it's really that stealthy. Instead, the armament is located on a total number of 10 hard points with three on each wing and four under the belly. There are talks that there might be an internal weapons bay in the production in the future, but that's something we'll have to see. With the current configuration, stealth performance of the KF-21 is questionable and definitely doesn't put in the same category as other fifth gen jets. So it's more than likely that this is a four plus plus gen aircraft compared to the Eurofighter, but with a lower radar cross section. However, this isn't exactly the issue because from the start, the Koreans were actually going for this and called it a 4.5 gen jet. And here's why. Indonesia. You see, Indonesia is actually a partner to this project and wants to buy at least 50 of these aircraft as an alternative to buying from Russia. Indonesia had been a buyer of Russian aircraft like the Su-27SKM and the Su-30 and only recently switched under pressure from the US towards Western weaponry. This also meant that they canceled the deal with the Russians to buy new Su-35s and bought 42 of the French Raphaels instead. With the war in Ukraine still raging, many nations who were trying to buy Russian jets traditionally inclined towards more neutral suppliers. They didn't exactly want to cozy up to America, but they had no choice to abandon Russia. This is how the French sales grew exponentially recently and why the KF-21 Korean jet might just be the perfect aircraft product for the market. With its price tag probably lower than the US or European counterparts, the KF-21 might become the ideal jet for many countries looking to replace their aging Cold War era fleets. And I bet the Koreans are counting on this too. The Block 1 jets will be focused on the air-to-air combat with limited air-to-ground capability and the second run, Block 2, will have full multi-role capability, with a further development that's a little bit more stealthy. The KF-21 is also planned to have a large variety of weaponry available, both American and European of course. Which is a little bit of a political problem. You see, the idea that the customers should have the option to go full French with the weapons, German or even Israeli, with the jets themselves being from Korea, is a little bit of a sticking point. This would mean less sales for the big old USA and we're going to have to see how they react to this growing competition between their allies. Lockheed may have helped make the jet, but now they've cut off supplies to their fellow American weapon manufacturers. There have already been conflicts with the French so far with the sales of submarines to my native Australia and rumours of troubles within the Greek Navy purchases with America flexing its muscle. But despite everything, this is a big step in the world of aviation and I'm happy that we're going to have yet another sleek and stealthy aircraft to admire in the near future. And I think this is a very interesting topic for the discussion, so feel free to share your opinions in the comments below and I'll try to hop in and answer as many as I can. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.