- KAI (Korea Aerospace Industries Co., Ltd.) announced on the 27th A contract was signed with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration for the second mass production project for the Army’s Light Armed Helicopter (LAH) worth approximately 1.4 trillion won.
- This contract includes integrated system support elements such as LAH aircraft, technical manuals, and follow-up technical support. The contract period is approximately 60 months, and this second volume is scheduled to be delivered sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2025 after the first mass production volume.
- KAI signed the first LAH mass production contract at the end of last year and established mass production infrastructure, and is currently producing with the goal of initial delivery at the end of 2024.
- A KAI official said, “As the second mass production contract has been signed following the first mass production, we will be able to contribute to securing stable sales for the company while strengthening military power.” He added, “We will do our best to ensure that there are no disruptions to the electrification schedule by complying with the delivery date.” .” he said.
- LAH is the second domestic helicopter developed with domestic technology. It is scheduled to perform missions such as the Army’s air strike operations (anti-armored combat) and air assault cover in the future, and will replace the aging 500MD TOW and AH-1S Cobra helicopters.
- A full glass cockpit is applied, including cutting-edge avionics equipment such as a smart multi-function display device (SMFD) and an integrated electronic map computer (IDMC), and it is equipped with weapons such as a 20mm turret-type machine gun, air-to-ground missiles, and unguided rockets.
- In addition, the high-performance target acquisition and designation system (TADS) and integrated helmet display device (HMD) are organically linked with the weapon system, greatly improving the pilot’s mission performance ability, and the radar warning receiver (RWR) and missile warning receiver (MWR) The aircraft’s survivability was also enhanced by being equipped with cutting-edge defense systems.
- KAI plans to solidify the LAH mass production system by concluding this second mass production contract and, based on this, actively pursue the development of LAH derivative helicopters and entry into overseas markets.
- In order to increase the usability of LAH, we plan to focus on developing derivative helicopters that can perform various missions such as special operations attack helicopters and command and control helicopters based on the LAH platform.
- In addition, we are actively marketing overseas markets to achieve exports of domestic helicopters. At the Dubai Air Show last November, LAH demonstrated its first overseas demonstration flight with Surion, the first domestically produced helicopter, and received great attention from overseas customers by showing excellent performance and maneuverability, raising export expectations.
Civil, Korea Aerospace Industries, LAH, News, Republic of Korea
