KAI T-50 Golden Eagle

Overview

The KAI T-50 Golden Eagle (Korean: 골든이글) is a family of advanced, supersonic, South Korean jet trainers, light combat aircraft, light strike fighters and multirole light fighters developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) with Lockheed Martin. It is South Korea's first indigenous supersonic aircraft and one of the world's few supersonic trainers. Development of the T-50 began in the late 1990s, and its maiden flight occurred in 2002. It entered service with the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) in 2005. The T-50 has been further developed into aerobatic and combat variants, namely T-50B, TA-50, and FA-50. An F-50 single-seat multirole fighter variant was considered before being cancelled. The T-50B serves with the South Korean Air Force's aerobatics team. The T-50 is in service with several countries. Iraq received 24 training variants designated T-50IQ in 2016. The TA-50 light attack variant has also been operated by Indonesia with 16 planes entered service in 2014 and an additional six aircraft were ordered in 2021. The Philippines operate the FA-50 light fighter variant with 12 delivered. Thailand ordered 12 units of the T-50 advanced trainer variant (T-50TH) starting in 2015. In 2022, Poland ordered 48 FA-50 aircraft, followed by Malaysia in 2023 which ordered 18 of the latest Block 20 variant.