South Korean FA-50 Fighters Sold to Poland Gain Major Air-to-Air Combat Capability Boost with AIM-120 Missiles

The United States has approved the first ever integration of the AIM-120 radar guided air-to-air missile to equip South Korean FA-50 fighter aircraft, with the AIM-120C-5, C-7, and C-8 variants all expected to be integrated onto FA-50PL fighters in the Polish Air Force from 2027. The Polish Defence Ministry ordered 48 FA-50 fighters from South Korea in 2022 to replace the MiG-29 fighters it donated to Ukraine, with these very lightweight aircraft having high availability rates and very low maintenance needs and operational costs. Rival lightweight fighter types including the Swedish Gripen, Sino-Pakistani JF-17, and Chinese JL-10, all integrate radar guided air-to-air missiles, with the integration of a similar capability onto the FA-50 having a transformative impact on its combat potential for air-to-air operations. 

The FA-50 suffers from limited manoeuvrability, and does not have high situational awareness due to the small size of the radar it integrates. Although its PhantomStrike radar is a highly sophisticated Gallium Nitride active electronically scanned array design, its size is well under a sixth that of Russian fighter radars, and the situational awareness it can provide at longer ranges is much more limited than radars carried by larger fighter types such as the F-35 and Russian Su-35. The aircraft’s advanced data links, however, allow it to receive targeting data from both air defence systems like the MIM-104 Patriot, and from the F-35A fighters that are scheduled to begin delivery to the Polish Air Force.  

In November 2025 the Polish Defence Ministry signed a $500 million contract with the United States to procure AIM-120D-3 radar guided air-to-air missile for its future F-35A fighters and its current fleet of F-16Cs/Ds. The Ministry ordered 32 F-35A fighters under a $4.6 billion contract in January 2020, while in August 2025 a $3.8 billion contract was signed to modernise 48 F-16C/D Block 52+ fighters to the F-16V standard, bringing their avionics up to a comparable standard to the F-35. The FA-50 thus represents the lightest and least costly of three fighter types intended to serve in the Air Force, with the F-35 providing by far the most significant combat capability. All three fighter types will integrate variants of the AIM-120, with the FA-50 using the older and shorter ranged AIM-120C variants which are less costly than the newer AIM-120D. 

In February 2026 Raytheon announced a multiyear deal with the Pentagon to increase annual production of the AIM-120 to reach levels of at least 1,900 annually, or at least 158 percent of levels seen in 2024 when 1,200 of the missiles were produced. Although a successor to the missile, the AIM-260, has been under development since 2017, not only have there been significant delays in bringing it into service, but it is also unaffordable for widespread deployments. A leading shortcoming of the AIM-120 is its lack of a similarly advanced radar in its seeker to the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars guiding the Chinese PL-15, PL-16, and PL-17, with plans to integrate an AESA radar onto the AIM-120D variant having been cancelled to reduce costs. The use of less advanced radars limits the missiles’ ability to resist jamming, and to lock onto targets with advanced stealth capabilities.