RoKAF Black Eagles
The Black Eagles, Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) sole aerobatics display team, will make their debut at the international stage in the UK, starting with RAF Waddington International Air Show from June 30th to July 1st.
The Black Eagles are composed of eight supersonic T-50Bs, domestically manufactured aircraft in partnership with the US Lockheed Martin.
The jets are flown by ROKAF’s best pilots, who have been through countless rigorous trainings, and will demonstrate 24 breath-taking maneuvers during a 30 minute display.
The name of the team is represented by the colour of their aircraft. The black, yellow, and white paint scheme evidently resembles a black eagle. Its performance will freely show versatile maneuverability of T-50B and a flawless teamwork.
At Waddington, the team is scheduled to fly-by a friendship formation along with Royal Air Force’s 9-ship Red Arrows.
It will then move on to join the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) on July 7-8th, and at Farnborough on July 9-15th.
The airlift operation for UK air shows had already started in early May, this year. The total of nine aircraft, including a spare, were disassembled and transported from ROKAF 8th Fighter Wing at the city of Wonju, Korea, where the BE team is currently based, to the UK via civilian airliner flying across the globe.
Their main engines and wings were then disassembled and packed into four different airplanes, which delivered the components to Manchester International Airport. At RAF Leeming, the components were reassembled to complete aircraft and went through test-flights as well as acceptance flights to be able to fly in the British airspace.
