AFTER their successful familiarization overflight and tour in the Visayas, the Air Force’s brand-new FA-50PH “Golden Eagle” jet fighters started the Mindanao leg of their overflight in Mindanao on Wednesday morning.
The overflights took place at 10 a.m. over the airspace of Cagayan de Oro, Butuan and Surigao cities, said Col. Antonio Francisco, Air Force spokesman.
The FA-50PHs earlier undertook overflight missions over Mactan, Catbalogan, Calbayog, Kalibo, Iloilo, Bacolod and San Carlos, all in the Visayas, last week.
“The overflight missions will also serve as a great avenue to train pilots and allow them to be acquainted with various aspect of flight missions, such as the country’s different terrains, weather and possible areas of interest,” Francisco earlier said.
Overflights will also demonstrate the Air Force’s combat capability to the public.
At least six FA-50PHs are now in service, with another six awaiting delivery. The 12-plane order from Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) is worth P18.9 billion.
The FA-50PH has a top speed of Mach 1.5, or one-and-a-half times the speed of sound, and is capable of being fitted with air-to-air missiles, including the AIM-9 “Sidewinder” air-to-air and heat-seeking missiles, aside from light automatic cannons.
The FA-50PH will act as the country’s interim fighter until the Philippines gets enough experience of operating fast jet assets and money to fund the acquisition of more capable fighter aircraft.
The FA-50PH design is largely derived from the F-16 “Fighting Falcon” and they have many similarities: use of a single engine, speed, size, cost and the range of weapons.
KAI’s previous engineering experience in license-producing the F-16K was a starting point for the development of the FA-50PHs.
The aircraft can carry two pilots in tandem seating. The high-mounted canopy developed by Hankuk Fiber is applied with stretched acrylic, providing the pilots with good visibility, and has been tested to offer the canopy with ballistic protection against four-pound objects impacting at 400 knots.
The altitude limit is 14,600 meters (48,000 feet), and the airframe is designed to last 8,000 hours of service.
There are seven internal fuel tanks with capacity of 2,655 liters (701 US gallons), five in the fuselage and two in the wings.
An additional 1,710 liters (452 US gallons) of fuel can be carried in the three external fuel tanks.
Trainer variants have a paint scheme of white and red, and aerobatic variants white, black and yellow.
The FA-50PHs use a single General Electric F404-102 turbofan engine license-produced by Samsung Techwin, upgraded with a full authority digital engine control system jointly developed by General Electric and KAI.
The engine consists of three-staged fans, seven axial stage arrangement and an afterburner.
Its engine produces a maximum of 78.7 kN (17,700 lbf) of thrust with afterburner.