Made in Korea: Counterinsurgency Trainers
In November 2012, Peru signed a $200 million contract with South Korea for turboprop trainers and light attack aircraft. The deal involves 10 of its KT-1 trainers, which have also been exported to Turkey and Indonesia, and 10 KA-1 armed counterinsurgency variants. An ROK official is quoted as saying that KAI plane won on both price and operational efficiency, while acknowledging that convincing a Latin American country not to buy from Brazil was challenging. Korea Aerospace Industries will ship 4 of the planes from South Korea, with the rest being assembled from KAI kits in Peru.
KAI's KT-1 reportedly beat Beechcraft's A/T-6B (Mexico), Pilatus' PC-9M, and Brazil's popular EMB-134 Super Tucano (many Latin American countries). The same "value positioning" model, which made items like Korea's Hyundai cars a success, is also at work for Korean offerings in the global defense sector. It's time for competitors to take note, because that model is starting to rack up steady wins.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Made-in-Korea-Counterinsurgency-Trainers-for-Peru-07599/
http://images.google.com/imgres?q=kai+ka-1&hl=nl&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&biw=1212&bih=759&tbm=isch&tbnid=sxLNxUFjgBS-oM:&imgrefurl=http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php%3F/topic/19665-did-made-in-korea-counterinsurgency-trainers-for-peru/&docid=rKa1MFM91dyedM&imgurl=http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_KA-1_Labeled_KAI_lg.gif&w=657&h=544&ei=Xn6bUMW3DejQ0QWvooH4DQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=887&vpy=159&dur=1153&hovh=204&hovw=247&tx=116&ty=115&sig=114549660656534057211&page=1&tbnh=167&tbnw=202&start=0&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:75
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAI_KT-1