South Korea promotes its newest KF-21 Boramae fighter to Indonesia, and for first time there is opportunity to at least approximately assess how much this fighter may cost, which its manufacturer KAI (Korea Aerospace Industries) calls 4.9-generation aircraft, stating it closely approached 5th-generation aircraft by its characteristics.
Koreans offer Indonesia purchase of 16 KF-21 Block 2 aircraft at price of approximately $2 billion — in rough calculation this involves $125 million per one aircraft, which as of today may be genuinely democratic export fighter price.
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Defense Express notes South Korean proposal details for KF-21 fighters for Indonesia are currently unknown, so unclear what is included in this cost — for example, if this involves purely aircraft without weapons, it will pull another considerable sum, or whether engines are included in cost and so on.
So $125 million can be considered starting point, while real fighter cost comprehensively may ultimately be higher — and this involves not small margin but possible sums in additional tens of millions of dollars.
At the same time, South Korea promotes its KF-21 fighter primarily as affordable price solution, and previously emphasized this aircraft can be up to 40% cheaper compared to Western competitors. Now, having at least approximate fighter export cost, one can compare whether it can genuinely be so cheap.
First worth mentioning American F-35 as representative specifically of fifth generation — considering, again, cost changes from country to country and depends on weapons quantity, other factors including how large aircraft batch planned for order is.
For example, one F-35 for Romania in 2024 cost approximately $225 million per fighter when purchasing total of 32 aircraft. And this without weapons (but this is not final deal, so this involves maximum possible cost). For Czechia in firm contract, fighter cost reached $208.3 million. And this involves prices several years old, while today this aircraft cost may be even higher.
Approximately same sum costs buyers one French Rafale fighter — as example one can cite Serbia, which in 2024 purchased 12 aircraft at €225 million each.
Even new F-16 can cost quite expensively and even more than fifth generation on example of Philippines, which last year received maximum possible cost of as much as $279 million per aircraft.
Considering these factors and if taking modern fighter cost from $200 million per unit, for KF-21 to be 40% cheaper than its competitors, its cost should be around $120 million per aircraft, so South Korean aircraft already does not fit this indicator.
At the same time, it genuinely has all chances to become attractive proposal in price and also likely delivery timelines.
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