Korea Starts Development of 6th-Generation Fighter

The next-generation fighter adopts a stealth design without a tail fin to minimize radar cross-section, and targets an adaptive cycle engine with over 30% better fuel efficiency than existing engines.

The 900 million won (about $0.65 million) project will run for 14 months and serves to draft the basic blueprint for the next-generation fighter.

Produced in collaboration with a 3D artist, the designs were rendered to resemble the actual configuration and are drawing attention as important indicators of the development direction.

The Korean 6th-generation fighter is characterized by delta wings, a triangular wing shape, and forward canards. In particular, by removing the horizontal and vertical tail fins, it aims to minimize radar cross-section and maximize broadband stealth performance.

The 6th-generation fighter aims to fly more than 30% faster than the KF-21's cruising speed of Mach 0.9, securing the ability to approach and fire weapons before the enemy.

The Korean 6th-generation fighter targets a compact size similar to the KF-21, at roughly 16 m long and 12 m wide. While the estimated weight of the GCAP fighter being co-developed by the UK, Japan, and Italy is 45 to 50 tons, Korea envisions an airframe of about 27 tons, much lighter. This lightweighting is achieved through design optimization based on the engine configuration.

The adaptive cycle engine is a core technology that extends operational range through fuel efficiency more than 30% better than existing engines. However, it is currently at the technology definition stage, still at an early research level, and full development is expected to take at least 20 years.

Korea faces realistic difficulties in fighter engine development and must overcome the limits of existing engine performance. To catch up with competitors, it is urgently necessary to devise differentiated approaches to compensate for the lack of engine technology.

Korea's technology level currently remains at the 4.5-generation fighter stage, roughly 20 years behind countries such as the UK and France. However, if it succeeds in developing a 6th-generation fighter, a quantum leap that narrows the gap to 5 to 10 years is expected to become possible.

Engineers who favor a new 6th-generation platform, however, counter that converting the non-stealth KF-21 into a stealth aircraft would cost about as much as building a new one, and its stealth performance would be limited, leaving the two views in conflict.

The United States has been testing configurations that would apply to its 6th-generation fighter through NASA since the mid-1990s.

The approach would raise development efficiency by sharing and modularizing common technologies such as engines, internal weapons bays, and stealth coatings. He also said a flexible approach should be considered, developing the aircraft first as an unmanned vehicle to verify the configuration before converting it to a manned aircraft.

Taking the development risks into account, Kim Min-seok proposed the principle of dual investment, pursuing KF-21 performance upgrades in parallel.

The absence of performance upgrades further deepened the gap with Korea.

When Taiwan acquired French-built warships in the 1990s, under pressure from China, France omitted weapons and equipment and delivered only the hulls and engines, leaving Taiwan defrauded. The affair led to defense procurement corruption and the unexplained death of a naval officer, accelerating the weakening of Taiwan's navy.

Taiwanese navy warships have no vertical launch systems (VLS) at all, leaving them badly short on modern combat response. Ships without VLS suffer a 10 to 20 second delay in responding to missile threats and cannot cover all 360 degrees, deepening their vulnerability. This is a major reason Taiwan cannot respond adequately to the Chinese navy.

Delays in building new vessels caused by the break in its indigenous development lineage have further aggravated the aging of its submarine force.

A key factor in this success was that the United States allowed export of its latest Aegis system, buying Korea time until domestic radar and missile development could catch up.