Korea Mulls Purchasing F-35 Fighter Jets for Next-Generation Project

, Korea is considering buying F-35 Lightning II fighter jets from an international consortium to boost its air defense capabilities, a top Air Force official said Tuesday (Oct. 31). 
 
“Right now, orders for F-35s are enormous, so it will be possible for us to buy and deploy them only after 2010,” Lt. Gen. Kim Eun-ki, deputy chief of the Air Force, said in a parliamentary hearing. 
 
His answer came after a ruling party lawmaker pressed for the purchase of the new fighter jet, pointing out that the fighter jet has a stealth function and its price is only 60 percent of the Boeing-built F-15K. 
 
In 2007, the ministry plans to start a project to secure an additional 20 “F-15 fighter-level” jets at a cost of 2.3 trillion won ($2.3 billion) to strengthen its air defense capabilities. But a winning model has not been decided yet. 
 
The project is the second phase in the country's ongoing fighter jet procurement project, dubbed F-X. U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. is to deliver 40 F-15K fighter jets to South Korea by the end of 2008. 
 
The F-35 is being designed and built by an aerospace industry team led by Lockheed Martin and major partners BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman. The first flight of production models is expected in late 2006. It costs about $45 million to $60 million per unit, while one F-15K is valued at about $105 million. 
 
In 2002, Korea chose Boeing's F-15K as its next-generation fighter model in consideration of the long-standing military alliance with the United States, giving a new lifeline to Boeing's then-sputtering F-15 production line in Missouri. The French-built Rafale fighter jet beat the F-15K by a narrow margin in the technical phase of evaluation. 
 
Korea purchases most of its military weapons from the United States, although their prices are comparatively high. Calls have risen among Korean officials to diversify the sources of their weapons, depending on how much they cost and other merits.