CM - Exactly. FA18 and JSFfan have the wrong end of the stick, to our great surprise. This is a deal for new aircraft vs. new aircraft, but the airframes, engines and subsystems are covered by a direct commercial sale. This saves money on negotiating USG bureaucracy and probably makes it easier to take account of the fact that KAI already makes the forward fuselages and wings of all F-15s and is design/engineering partner on the conformal weapons bay.
However, this does raise the point that an F-15SE buy would allow ROK to upgrade their 60 F-15Ks to the SE standard or very close to it.
Neither does an F-15SE buy take Korea out of the JSF market, because they have F-16s to replace, and they can buy fully developed aircraft off a 200-per-year production line when the F-35 has become a smashing success.
