K100 Regional Jet
By August 2010 Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) was consiering entry into the regional turboprop segment as early as 2011 with the launch of a 90-seat aircraft. The company had rejected the idea of a regional jet due to the crowded market already existing with segment leaders Embraer and Bombardier being joined by new aircraft from Mitsubishi, Sukhoi and AVIC.
During the later half of 1994, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Korea, represented on the project by Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) and the Korea Commercial Aircraft Development Consortium, agreed to a joint development of a twin-engine 100-seat regional jet. The Korean Commercial Aircraft Development Consortium was originally formed to bid (unsuccessfully) in the Chinese AE-100 regional jet program. Samsung acted as lead partner in the Korea Commercial Aircraft Development Consortium (KCDC), the 14-member group formed by the government in 1994 to lead Korea's participation in a 100-seat civil aircraft program. Members of this consortium include Samsung Aerospace, Daewoo Heavy Industries, Hyundai and Korean Air [On October 1, 1999, following months of delays, Daewoo Heavy Industries, Samsung Aerospace, and Hyundai Space & Aircraft pooled their aerospace operations into a new, independent company, Korean Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI)].
The K100-04A was one of the configurations of a 100-seater transport developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and Korea Commercial Aircraft Development Consortium (KCDC). It had a maximum takeoff weight of 103,000 pounds, would cruise at Mach 0.78 at 35,000 feet, with a range of 1,100 miles. The applications of CFD in the design process of the K100 transonic civil transport at KARI included three Navier-Stokes solvers developed at KARI with different grid approaches. These were used to predict the aerodynamic coefficients and solve the flowfield of various configurations. Multi-block, Chimera, and unstructured grids were the approaches implemented. The accuracy of the codes was verified for the transonic flow about RAE wing/fuselage configuration. The multi-block code was used to provide the detailed data on the flowfield around a wall interference model with different test section sizes which will be used in establishing the wall interference correction method. The subsonic and transonic flowfields about the K100-04A were computed to predict the aerodynamic coefficients.
Disagreement over work shares, program leadership, and final assembly site caused increasing tension between the two principals. These were factors in China's subsequent recruitment of Singapore Technologies Aerospace (STA) into the program. The Sino-Korean differences were not resolved, resulting in Korea's withdrawal from the project.
Samsung Aerospace's efforts in 1996 to invest up to $150 million to revive Fokker from bankruptcy and use the Dutch aircraft maker's proposed 130-seat aircraft program as a venue for its own ambitions in the regional jet market failed because of lack of support from the Korean Government and the decision of one of Fokker's suppliers to terminate wing production for the company's regional jets.
In April 1997, KCDC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with AI(R), a joint venture operated by Aérospatiale (France), Alenia/Finmeccanica (Italy), and British Aerospace, for collaboration on the AI(R) 70-seat regional aircraft. Despite estimations of a market for aircraft of this size and the Korean industry's willingness to fund a portion of the program's estimated $1 billion development costs, AI(R) chose to drop the 70-seat jet project in December 1997.
Korea's subsequent talks with EMBRAER (Brazil), Israel Aircraft Industries, and Fairchild-Dornier (United States) over the joint development and production of medium-sized aircraft did not result in any agreement.
By the end of 1997, the newly renamed Boeing 717, formerly the McDonnell Douglas MD-95, strengthened Boeing's position at the bottom end of the market, where some of Asia's tigers had cast their eyes. Already designed and being built, the 717 acted as a barrier to new entrants. Projects that were grounded included a 130-seat passenger jet, planned by Indonesia's Industry Pesawat Terbang Nusantara, and the 70-seat passenger jet contemplated by the Korea Commercial Aircraft Development Consortium. The industrial plans of both Indonesia and Korea were increasingly influenced by the International Monetary Fund, which insisted they abandon gold-plated development projects.
In April 1998 the South Korean Government slashed the llocation of funding for the Korea Commercial aircraft Development Consortium (KCDC) because of the country's economic difficulties, and the absence of concrete progress in breaking into the civil aviation market. South Korea's new Government cut KCDC's budget to just one billion won ($723,000), a fraction of the 18 billion won industry had been asking for.
Though W50 billion was spent in research, the project was pronounced dead in the summer of 1998. In a bid to find a partner, they chased after Chinese, European and American aircraft companies, but in vain. Technology development in Korea was also unsuccessful due to frequent changes in drawing plans. South Korea's aerospace industry had long been known for its infighting, which had hindered the development of national projects.
The government's long-term growth plan for 1997-2005 called for the commercial aircraft industry to focus on the production of parts for Large Civil Aircraft [LCA] and the development of medium-sized commercial aircraft. LCA are traditionally defined as civil aircraft with more than 100 seats and weighing over 33,000 pounds. Korea's many attempts to achieve the latter have been unsuccessful, however, as Korean cooperation with Western entities has failed to produce concrete plans for aircraft production, and differences over final assembly and manufacturing rights led to a dissolution of the Korea-China agreement for development of a 100-seat regional jet. Nonetheless, both the Korean government and industry have repeatedly expressed the desire that Korea become a global competitor in the aerospace industry, and the aerospace sector planned to continue its efforts to produce a passenger aircraft.
While the Korean industry had built a solid foundation upon which to expand into more complex projects, the nation's domestic market is too small to support a regional aircraft program. Though Korea's airlines saw a need for a 100-seat regional jet to increase frequencies on medium distance routes such as Seoul-Tokyo and Seoul-Singapore, sources in the manufacturing sector estimated that the country would need to sell a minimum of 200-300 aircraft to recoup full development costs. Thus, without a guaranteed domestic sales base, the Korean aerospace industry would need to produce an economically and technically superior product for sale in foreign markets.
Korean Government and industry representatives indicated that Korea has no desire to build an aircraft alone, but sought foreign contributions of technology, money, and market. Moreover, the aviation community insisted that a U.S. or European partner was fundamental to the initiation of an aircraft project; however, despite several attempts, Korea failed to find a suitable partner for its regional aircraft program.
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