The initial design of KAI's loyal wingman conceived an unmanned aircraft that was roughly a third of the size of the KF-21 Boramae manned fighter aircraft. (Janes)
Korea Aerospace Industries' (KAI's) ‘loyal wingman' unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is undergoing design changes to “satisfy future market requirements”. Changes include a possible reduction in the size of the aircraft, KAI said.
The UCAV programme was conceived to support KAI's KF-21 4.5-generation fighter aircraft with a low acquisition, low-operating-cost attritable, combat platform. While the UCAV is being developed to be relatively inexpensive compared with the KF-21, KAI now acknowledges an increase in programme costs.
“[This is] because KAI's engineers are looking for optimal design options [including] the use of a [high-performance] … turbofan engine,” a company spokesperson told Janes on 19 August. However, the spokesperson added that the “iterated or revised design can be downsized without reduced capabilities”.
Janes reported in 2023 that designers expected the UCAV to be a third of the size of the KF-21. In October 2023 during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition 2023 (ADEX 23), a KAI representative told Janes that the unmanned fighter will have a potential length of 14 m and a wingspan of 10 m. This is roughly equivalent to the dimensions of the KAI FA-50 light attack aircraft, the KAI representative added at the time.
However, in the company's latest communication with Janes , the spokesperson said that “a change of aircraft size can occur anytime during the design iteration if a revised design is expected to meet the requirements”.
“As KAI's loyal wingman is in the conceptual design phase, indeed, there can be many options to satisfy expected future market,” the spokesperson added.
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