The Philippines will receive on Friday the first two of 12 FA-50 Golden Eagle jets from Korea Aerospace Industries.

The planes, lead-in fighter trainers, will arrive at Clark Air Base, a former U.S. facility of the Philippine Air Force, as part of the PAF's modernization effort, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

The FA-50, built by the Korean company with assistance from Lockheed Martin, has a maximum speed of 1,020 miles per hour and range of 1,150 miles. It can be fitted with air-to-air missiles, heat-seeking missiles, and light automatic cannons. It can also carry a variety of bombs.

"This is the first time that we will have supersonic capability since 2005 when our (F-5) jets were decommissioned, said PAF spokesman Col. Enrico Canaya. "This is the revival of the supersonic jet age."

The newspaper said the remaining 10 aircraft from South Korea are to be delivered by 2017.

The Philippines earlier this year sent three PAF pilots to South Korea to undergo training in operating the aircraft.

The delivery of the aircraft comes amid continuing tension between the Philippines and China over

ownership of small islands off the Philippines and Chinese military construction in the area.

BAE Systems touts after-market products, services for F-15s
Arlington, Va. (UPI) Nov 24, 2015 - BAE Systems is bannering its products and service for F-15 fighters as the after-market original equipment manufacturer for fleet sustainment and upgrades.

Among them are development, fabrication, integration, testing and qualification of electro-mechanical avionics products, as well as full logistics support packages.

"Extending the life of today's weapon systems and platforms is more important than ever, and equipping global armed forces with leading edge technology is imperative," the company said in a news release. "We support both domestic and international customers throughout the world through both U.S. Foreign Military Sales and direct commercial sales procurement requirements."

As examples of F-15 products and services, BAE Systems pointed to its replacement flat panel control indicators integrated onto U.S. Air Force F-15 C/D aircraft.

The drop-in, form-fit-function replacement utilizes a soft-key menu system for additional control functions without hardware modifications.

Its replacement vertical situation display processes electrical signals from the aircraft's legacy programmable signal data processor for enhanced signal processing and color capability.