All in the title.
The year is 2030 and the F-35 while it has improved, still has the basic flaws that saw, ten years earlier in 2020, a remarquable return of the F-15.
Except such return is no longer possible by 2030, yet USAF still suffers from accelerated retirement and attrition of the late 4th generation combat aircraft: F-15EX and F-16 block 70.
And so USAF looks for another "miniature, multirole, less expensive F-22 sidekick".
Because of international emergency and all kind of internal difficulties, designing a whole new fighter from scratch is not possible.
Procuring Rafale, Typhoons, F-15EX or Super Hornet is just impossible.
...and thus the one and only left is South Korea KF-X. And the impossible happens: in a way rather similar to the F-15EX procurement, USAF decides to procure KF-X as an "in between" the too few F-22s (barely 170 left by this point) and the definitively flawed F-35.
150 KF-X are procured... and in turn, this is a turning point. Because it has a lot of US DNA including the F414 engines - the KF-X got US blessing for massive export sales once planned for the F-35 that never happened. In a sense it become the third US fighter, the middle option between the other two.
Thoughts ?
The year is 2030 and the F-35 while it has improved, still has the basic flaws that saw, ten years earlier in 2020, a remarquable return of the F-15.
Except such return is no longer possible by 2030, yet USAF still suffers from accelerated retirement and attrition of the late 4th generation combat aircraft: F-15EX and F-16 block 70.
And so USAF looks for another "miniature, multirole, less expensive F-22 sidekick".
Because of international emergency and all kind of internal difficulties, designing a whole new fighter from scratch is not possible.
Procuring Rafale, Typhoons, F-15EX or Super Hornet is just impossible.
...and thus the one and only left is South Korea KF-X. And the impossible happens: in a way rather similar to the F-15EX procurement, USAF decides to procure KF-X as an "in between" the too few F-22s (barely 170 left by this point) and the definitively flawed F-35.
150 KF-X are procured... and in turn, this is a turning point. Because it has a lot of US DNA including the F414 engines - the KF-X got US blessing for massive export sales once planned for the F-35 that never happened. In a sense it become the third US fighter, the middle option between the other two.
Thoughts ?