South Korea plans to sign a deal to buy 40 fighter jets in the third quarter, its arms procurement agency said on Monday, January 28, 2014, and its plan to acquire Lockheed Martin Corp F-35s appears on track despite possible development delays.
“With changes made in procurement plans from February to March, followed by committee approval, we will work to sign a contract around the third quarter,” Jung Kwang-sun, the head of aircraft programmes at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), told reporters.
South Korea decided to redraw the terms of its $7.7 billion tender to buy 60 fighters last year, reducing the number in December to an initial 40 jets after rebuffing Boeing Co’s F-15s.
Although not yet finalised, South Korea has signalled its intention to buy F-35As since its Joint Chiefs endorsed a need in December for “cutting-edge stealth” jets for first delivery in 2018.
“After judging through many channels, we have heard that there is no problem in (the U.S. Air Force) adopting the F-35A by 2016 and we believe there will be no problem by 2018,” Jung said.
The remark comes after a Pentagon report seen by Reuters and published on Thursday, January 30, said a possible 13-month delay in F-35 software development, coupled with maintenance and reliability problems, could stall the U.S. Marine Corps’ plans to start using its F-35B fighter jets from mid-2015.
“We’re buying F-35As, not (F-35)Bs. Not only that, it’s the nature of being in development to encounter problems and solve them,” a DAPA official with direct knowledge of the fighter jet procurement process told Reuters.
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