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KAI KUH-1 Surion

2013 MODERN AIRCRAFT

History

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) is widely recognized in the military market for its powerful KAI/Lockheed product T-50 "Golden Eagle", an advanced two-seater with secondary combat capability Jet trainer. Introduced in 2005, the aircraft has approximately 82 built-in trainer and attack configurations. Relatively new to the KAI family is the KUH-1 "Surion", a medium transport helicopter designed and built in Korea. Surion was born in 2006 out of the Korean helicopter project - the Korean Utility Helicopter (KHP-KUH) program, which eventually produced a working product (and named it the "KUH" part) in 2010.

Since then, the South Korean military has received about ten or more helicopters for training army pilots. The Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) expects to procure a total of approximately 245 units to replace the outgoing combat helicopter fleet of Bell UH-1 Huey/Iroquois combat helicopters from the United States.

War and their lighter counterpart the Hughes/McDonald Douglas 500MD.

The design and development of the KUH-1 was done in part with the assistance of Eurocopter engineers, so with its rounded edges, deep fuselage, and overhead twin-engine configuration, it took on a distinctly European look - the exterior it Not dissimilar to the Eurocopter/Airbus Super Cougar series.

The Surion is equipped with the latest military hardware expected from a modern mid-sized combat platform. These include, but are not limited to, GPS navigation, mobile digital maps, integrated countermeasures and situational awareness, fatigue mitigation qualities, radar/missile warning receivers, and FLIR.

In addition to the two crew members, the aircraft can carry up to 16 passengers. A pair of door gunners can also be deployed, but with a slightly reduced ability to carry passengers.

This allows the aircraft to provide its own measure of self-defense by deploying 2 x 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG) on trainable trunnion mounts.

In addition to the standard transport model, KAI is expected to offer several major configuration types of its KUH-1 family, including a dedicated strike platform, a South Korean Marine Corps amphibious model, and a mission-critical MEDEVAC version. Surion products are expected to be exported to countries allied with South Korea.

In the armed direct contact combat role, the Surion gunship model will support 6 x Hughes BGM-71 TOW wire-guided anti-tank (AT) missiles via hardpoints located on attachable stub wings. In lieu of missile weapons for hitting armored targets, the helicopter will also support the deployment of missile and cannon pods for use against "soft-skinned" vehicles and force concentration.

The production of the Surion helicopter started in 2010 and has been in production since March 2014. KAI also produces the local variant of the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon, the KF-16.