The Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been trying to sell their Kfirs to the Philippine Air Force since the 1990s, towards the end of President Cory Aquino’s term and all throughout President Fidel Ramos’ term when the Philippines bought a lot of military equipment, but to no avail. As of this writing, President Noynoy Aquino had indicated that the procurement for the Korean Aerospace Industries’ (KAI) FA-50 Golden Eagle (or Geagle) are in its final stages,[1] hence the chances of the Kfir ending up in our inventory is now even more slim. Just out of curiousity, though, I decided to compare the Kfir to the Geagle, see how it fares on a one on one comparison.
‘Aircraft Background’
The Kfir is based on the Mirage III/5 delta-winged aircraft whose blueprints were stolen by the Mossad (as is now detailed in various spy books and articles[2]), and is described as an all-weather, Multi-Role Fighter aircraft. It first entered service in 1975 and saw extensive combat duty with the Israeli Air Force (IAF) before finally being retired by the IAF in 1996. Currently the air forces of Colombia, Equador and Sri Lanka are still operating the aircraft.[3]
All Kfirs being sold now are taken from the mothballed stocks of the IAF, but are refurbished and upgraded with advanced avionics. The latest version in the market is the “Block 60″ armed with an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, the EL/M-2052. IAI is selling this new version with a 40-year manufacturer’s guarantee for the low price of only USD 20 million each, which would be cheaper than the FA-50 Golden Eagles.[4]
The FA-50 is made by the South Korea’s “Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)â€, and is a smaller, license-built version of the F-16 Fighter aircraft. It is intended as a Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) which can also be used as a Lead-In Fighter Trainer (LIFT) for more advanced aircrafts, and will enter South Korean Air Force service starting 2014.[5] As of this time, the Philippine Air Force is (still) negotiating for the final procurement of the FA-50 into service. At an estimated price of USD 38 million per unit for the Philippine contract, the Geagle is more expensive than the Kfir
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