The Air Force awarded Korean Air a $38.4 million contract for depot maintenance services on US F-16s operating in the Asia-Pacific region through June 2018. Activities that the company’s aerospace division, which is headquartered in Busan, South Korea, will perform include stripping and painting the F-16s and helping to upgrade them, according to the description in DOD’s Sept. 19 list of major contracts. More specifically, the work will include maintenance and inspections of wing parts, landing gear, and lower bulkheads, reported the Korea Times on Sept. 26. It will also entail spraying the jets with special radar-deflecting paint and dispatching specialists to oversee emergency repairs within operational units, according to the newspaper. Korean Air also does upkeep work on Air Force F-15s.
The emphasis on speed in the Pentagon’s newly unveiled slate of acquisition reforms may come with increased near-term cost increases, analysts say. But according to U.S. defense officials, the new weapons-buying construct provides the military with enough flexibility to prevent runaway budget overruns in major programs.
