Aircraft industry heavyweights from Korea and France are joining forces to develop a state-of-the-art chopper.

Korea Aerospace Industries, or KAI, and France's Eurocopter will hold kickoff talks this week in Marignane, France to launch a joint venture by 2010.

KAI, holding a 51 percent stake, says the first copter will be ready by 2012 to replace the Korean military's aging fleet of UH1H "Hueys," one of which crashed a month ago, taking seven lives.

Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration, in charge of the helicopter project, told Arirang News that they also aim to sell the new aircraft model overseas for civilian purposes, by as early as 2015.

Arirang News

I thought Korea were building their own helicopter by themselves? Designed, built and certified by 2012? good luck to them!! perhaps this new helicopter will give eurocopter the little nudge they need to come back to the same playing field as Sikorsky and AgustaWestland! so if this is to replace the huey, what about their similar Lynx helicopters> cos they're about 20 years old now arent they?

That's old news.
This joint venture is not just for Korea, Koreans are looking for re-export and technological knowledge transfer.
Currently Australia and Indonesia is doing the similar deals with Eurocopter.

Even China and Japan is getting help from overseas experts, most asian countries still don't have enough technological knowledge as US, Russia, France and Britain do on helicopter.

Besides, building homemade helicopter is no problem but getting into battle ready is different matter.

New maritime helicopter acquisition is mentioned in the mid-term defense acqusition planning schedule. It will coincide with the FFX frigate program as that would vastly increase the number of decks in the fleet. At the moment, prime contenders appear to be SH-60R or the Future Lynx. EH-101 is too big, too expensive, and the NH-90 will be at disadvantage if the Euro continues to stay strong.

hey guys! i got a little confession to make! I'm actually a flight control systems engineer with one of the above companies :P so im on the inside. all i can say is you are right. there currently is some technology transfer with my company and the japanese...in fact, some Japanese from KHI just left back to japan on friday from my office!! Future lynx is rumoured to be dead now (even we dont know!) as a point of clarification...why is the AW101 (previously called EH101) judged by weight, then the NH90 is judged by the Euro. shouldnt the 101 be judged by the euro too since its a product from the same company :P #

Besides, the this KHP seems to be making a helicopter that appears to be the same size as say an agustawestland AB139?? whats the point in spending the money? and as far as i was aware, isnt korea buying a bunch of 101's in the summer?