MELBOURNE — South Korea has completed the flight test program for Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) KF-21 Boramae jet, a key milestone for the indigenous fighter.

The country’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced the development in a press release today, noting that the test program successfully completed approximately 1,600 flight tests over a 42-month period without a single accident.

It saw the verification of the KF-21’s flight stability and performance through approximately 13,000 test conditions including air-to-air weapon launch tests and recovery from extreme flight attitudes.

DAPA’s announcement added that the test program had wrapped up on Monday with the fourth KF-21 prototype flying its final test flight from KAI’s facilities at Saechon, finishing two months ahead of schedule.

Following the completion of the flight test program, DAPA will now move on to completing the KF-21 system development program in the first half of this year and has plans for KAI to start deliveries of production aircraft to the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) in the second half of the year.

South Korea has contracted for 40 KF-21 Block 1 aircraft for the ROKAF. These aircraft will be optimized primarily for air-to-air missions, and KAI is developing a future Block II multi-role variant that will incorporate air-to-ground and reconnaissance mission sets.

KAI is also pushing for exports for the KF-21, with Indonesia continuing to be an investor in the program with an eye on acquiring the type and having its own defense industry contribute to manufacturing the aircraft.

However the protracted saga of its lagging payments and a reduction in its contribution to the program has soured relations between the countries, with Korea’s JoongaAng Daily reporting that Indonesia will no longer be receiving the fifth prototype aircraft for local flight testing and weapon integration as originally planned.

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The Philippines is reportedly in talks to acquire the KF-21, with discussions ongoing between both countries while other potential customers include Malaysia, Poland and Peru.