SALE: Supersonic Jet Fighters, $100

Of Course, There's A Catch; Isn't There Always A Catch?

Can you really buy a supersonic jet fighter for $100? Well, no. Not YOU. Or me. But someone can. Or rather, some nations can.

South Korea is retiring its last 50 F-5A and F-5B Freedom Fighters (also called Tigers) this month, after 40 years of service. You'd never know they were that old to look at them; Korean mechanics have kept them clean enough to serve bulgogi on (probably by not serving bulgogi on them, in part).

The Koreans have their own name for the venerable, but still potent, little fighter: Chegoong-ho, which means "Skymaster."

The Koreans are building their own plane in the F-5 class but, of course, more modern, the T-50. So they don't need the F-5s, their lead-in fighter trainer and supersonic trainer, any more. But they certainly hope to turn the bargain-basement F-5 sales of today into sales of new airplanes tomorrow. The KT-1 turboprop trainer (which replaced the T-41 and T-37 in Korean service) and T-50 are good deals, but substantially more than $100 a pop.

About half of Korea's 50 remaining early F-5s will be sold. The other half will be used for static training airframes, or donated to museums. The F-5 was very important in South Korean military history -- it was the first Korean supersonic fighter, and it put the brakes on North Korean clandestine flights dropping saboteurs and spies in the 1960s and 70s.

This isn't the first time the Koreans have sold off some F-5s. In 1972, they sold a number of them to the ill-fated Republic of Vietnam. It's not even the only time they've sold them for small change. The Phillipines now operates a fleet of F-5s which cost them, you got it, $100 each. But this is the last batch of the 120 F-5As and Bs: get them while you can.

South Korea still operates newer F-5E and F-5F jets as second line fighters (Korea also has F-15 and F-16s). Many of the E and F model F-5s were made by Hanjin Corporation in Korea, with engines built by Samsung. (The aviation parts of both conglomerates are now part of Korean Aerospace Industries).

Interest in the current group of jets comes from as far away as Poland, which would like to replace its Soviet-era planes with something more economical, and Mexico, which is always looking for a bargain. The low-cost export of the planes would have to be approved by the originator -- the USA -- under arms control protocols. That is not expected to be a problem with any of the likely customers.

But, unless you are a nation, you're probably not going to get the same deal.

Don't despair, though, if you simply must have an F-5. You'll pay a lot more for it (maybe $3.5 million, and remember you burn 450 gallons of Jet A an hour, and the thing was designed to be maintained by the money-no-object US Government, with all that entails for a private owner), but Thornton Aircraft can hook you up.