I Love a First Flight

Have some video

Hi-res photos of 🇰🇷 KF-21's first flight pic.twitter.com/NpjqxFoXRV

— Fighterman_FFRC (@Fighterman_FFRC) July 19, 2022

and some pictures

The first flight of the KF-21 happened yesterday at the Sacheon airport in South Korea.

The aircraft, roughly the size of an F/A-18 A model, is midway between the 4th generation fighters like the F-15, F-16, Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, MiG-29, and Su-27, and aircraft like the F-22, F-35, Su-57, Sukhoi Checkmate, Chengdu J-20, and Shenyang FC-31, which are optimized for full stealth.

The KF-21 is clearly designed for a low radar cross section, but, at least at this point, it is not designed to operate routinely with internally. stowed weapons.

There is talk of a variant with internal weapons bay, but this decision gives far more flexibility in terms of the weapons that it can carry.

Depending on on the configuration of its weapon load-outs, the aircraft could have a pretty low RCS.

Notably, it took to the air carrying dummy Meteor missiles in semi-recessed bays, which is surprising for a maiden flight.

The first prototype of the KF-21 Boramae (Korean for “Hawk”), the next-generation fighter developed by KAI (Korea Aerospace Industries), carried out its first flight on at Sacheon airport, home of Korea Aerospace Industries’ production facilities some 300 kilometers south of Seoul, South Korea, on Jul. 19, 2022.

………

As we have already explained in details here at The Aviationist, the aircraft, unveiled last year and developed as a low-cost, less-stealthy alternative to the American F-35, is expected to be fielded by the ROKAF (Republic Of Korea Air Force) by the 2030s to replace its fleet of ageing F-4E Phantom and F-5E/F Tiger II aircraft. Six prototypes, including two twin-seat aircraft, are being built to support the testing campaign that is expected to last until 2026, when full scale production should begin with KF-21 Block I.

It's interesting that they will be fielding a 2-seat version.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the only stealthy fighter to have a two seat version. 

It looks to be an attempt to thread the needle between 4th generation fighters like the Typhoon, Rafale, and Flanker and the expensive to operate and difficult to upgrade 5th generation fighters

In any case, I love reading about this sh%$.