The first Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) FA-50 light attack aircraft have arrived in Poland—just one year after the contract was signed—ahead of the type’s appearance planned in a major military parade in August.
The first two aircraft arrived on July 8 after being airlifted into Poland onboard a Korean Air Cargo Boeing 747 freighter, a delivery method tried and tested previously for deployments of South Korea’s Black Eagles aerobatic display team.
The aircraft will be reassembled ahead of airshow appearances and a major flypast over Warsaw for Polish Army Day on Aug. 12, which will feature up to 92 Polish military aircraft.
The two aircraft form part of the 12-strong batch of FA-50GF (Gap Filler) platforms that are being delivered from an order diverted from the South Korean Air Force in response to the mega-order placed by Poland in the summer of 2022, which also includes hundreds of main battle tanks, rockets and howitzer artillery systems. All 12 aircraft are due to be delivered by the end of the year.
Delivery of the airframes comes just a month after the formal rollout of the aircraft at KAI’s facilities in Sacheon, in South Korea’s South Gyeongsang province, which was attended by the Polish National Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak.
In a message on social media, Blaszczak said the aircraft “will strengthen the potential of the [Polish] Air Force.”
The 12 FA-50GFs will be followed by the delivery of 36 more advanced FA-50PLs, including additional weapon integrations, longer operational range through newly developed external fuel tanks, updated avionics and Raytheon’s PhantomStrike active electronically scanned array radar.
The FA-50GFs will be converted to FA-50PL standard at a later point. The FA-50 was selected in part because of the type’s compatibility with Poland’s existing F-16C/D Block 50 fleet and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, of which Poland is due to take delivery in 2024.
The $3 billion Polish order marks KAI’s first sale of the FA-50/T-50 family of aircraft into Europe. Once in service, the FA-50s will replace Poland’s Soviet-era fleets of Sukhoi Su-22 Fitters and Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrums. Many of the latter have been transferred to Ukraine.
