KAI to Develop Single-Seat FA-50, Autonomous Aircraft

Defense News ,South Korea :-  Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) is working on two new aircraft projects to make its business stronger.

One project is to create a special kind of aircraft that can fly on its own, called an autonomous aerial vehicle. The other project is to make a version of their fighter jet that only has one seat.

These projects will cost a lot of money, about 90.9 billion Korean won (about $68.8 million). Most of this money, about 55.3 billion won ($42 million), will go to the autonomous jet project. The rest, about 35.6 billion won ($27 million), will be for the single-seat fighter jet.

The CEO of KAI, Kang Goo-young, said they are doing well in their business, with a lot of sales last year. They want to invest more in new projects to keep doing well in the future.

Last year, KAI made record sales of 3.8 trillion won (about $2.89 billion). This happened mostly because they sold many FA-50 fighter jets to Poland.

The autonomous aerial vehicle project will first focus on designing and testing the technology needed for the aircraft to fly on its own. They plan to finish this phase by 2025. Then, they will build a prototype and test it by 2028. They hope to get approval from South Korea and the US to use this aircraft for commercial flights by 2031. Overall, this project will cost about 150 billion won (about $114 million).

The single-seat version of the FA-50 fighter jet is being made because customers asked for it. It will be better for fighting in the air and on the ground. So far, KAI has sold 138 of these fighter jets to countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Poland. They want to sell even more and capture half of the market for single-seat aircraft. They aim to sell 300 units.