Turkey decides to build first war plane

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 16 Dec 10,, 08:55

This decision is seperate from the previously discussed option of joining the KF-X fighter program with South Korea. See Turkey may develop fighter aircraft with S Korea, Indonesia

Turkey to field new fighter by 2023, but slips utility helicopter choice
By Tolga Ozbek
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...rFriendly=true

The Turkish air force could introduce an indigenous twin-engined fighter around 2023, according to the nation's Undersecretary of Defence Industries (SSM) procurement agency.
Plans for the "Turkish type fighter" were unveiled in Ankara on 15 December, with local company Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) named as general co-ordinator for the programme.
The SSM has allocated $20 million for an initial two-year design phase to be conducted by TAI, with the company to also be responsible for sourcing engines from a foreign supplier.
Under the SSM's plans, the new fighter would be available for service around 2023 as a replacement for the air force's McDonnell Douglas F-4s (below) and Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 30s. It would operate alongside the service's planned future fleet of 100 conventional take-off and landing F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, plus its later-model F-16s.

Defence minister Vecdi Gonul says Ankara is aware of South Korea's plans to field a new fighter through its own KF-X programme. "It is not clear at the moment, but we will make cooperation about the next-generation fighter," he says. Korea Aerospace Industries is still seeking international partners for its KF-X development, with Indonesia also having expressed interest.
If confirmed, the decision would represent bad news for other fighter manufacturers, such as the Eurofighter consortium, which has long viewed Turkey as a potential future buyer for its multirole Typhoon.
Meanwhile, the SSM has again slipped a selection decision in the Turkish armed forces' 109-aircraft general utility helicopter contest.
SSM sources say the price of the rival AgustaWestland AW149 and Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk bids were too high and that new negotiations will delay a decision until the agency's next procurement meeting in March 2011.

Turkey decides to build first war plane
Turkey decides to build first war plane [ WORLD BULLETIN- TURKEY NEWS, WORLD NEWS ]

Turkish National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said that they decided to project the country's first war plane.

Gonul said after the Defense Industry meeting which lasted for about four hours under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "we have been reviewing the offers under the project for meeting helicopter requirements of both the Turkish Armed Forces and the other public institutions. Since we did not consider the offers of the Sikorksy of the USA and Agusta Westland of Italy as sufficient, we decided to continue hold talks."

"On the other hand, we have given directives for a war plane project in Turkey for the first time. The plane will be a new generation jet and fly with F16 and F35 jets," he said.

Asked whether Turkey would cooperate with South Korea to manufacture the war plane, Gonul said, "there are 5-6 countries in the world manufacturing war planes. South Korea also wants to build war planes just like Turkey. We can cooperate with South Korea. For the time being, we decided to manufacture Turkey's own war plane."

Following the success of the MILGEM corvette and Frigate program, it looks like Turkey has set it's eyes onto in-house combat aircraft. It remains to be seen whether Turkey will simply "develop" an "indegenous" twin-engined viper or will it come up with an original design.
What is certain though is that Turkey is seriously spending money on the expansion of it's armed forces.

F-16's, F-4's, F-35's, KF-X's, Eurofighter Typhoons and now an indegenous designed aircraft? What are they preparing for?

**Big K** · 17 Dec 10,, 12:35

F-16's, F-4's, F-35's, KF-X's, Eurofighter Typhoons and now an indegenous designed aircraft? What are they preparing for?

what do you want to hear/read?

hey Turkey will try to re-build The Ottoman Empire!!!!!!!........ lol

are you happy now?

heres my thoughts about this

f-16's and f-4's are too old,

f-35's are not ready yet and will not be for a while...

typhoons are just for showing that Turkey have alternatives,

KF-X's and the new one are for defensive independence...

more indengenous weapons = less money = more jobs = better economy....

is this that hard to understand?

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 18 Dec 10,, 00:14

Big K, I think you are misinterpreting me. Fleet expansions and radical increases in defence spending usually means that this is in response to some form of increased threat. I am more interested to know what this threat is we are trying to counterbalance. None of our neighbours have the military might to seriously challenge us. Hence, what has changed and what is the new threat to Turkey's territorial integrity that warrants all this military build up? Yes, having Military might is good for deterence etc etc. But I think we are facing something else. Just look at the numbers of military hardware we have ordered:

For example these are off the top of my head;

Foreign bases upgrades in Albania and Azerbeijan
Indigenous Corvettes and Frigates (MILGEM and F-100)
Indegenous Frigate/Destroyer (Tf-2000)
Indegenous Passive Phased Array radar systems
Indegenous LPD (Levant)
20,000 ton LHD- Dokto or Canberra class
LST's
New Patrol Boats
120 Utility helicopters (Blackhawks or Agusta 149)
120 F-35
Indegenous fighter
High Altitude ABM- Patriot or S-400
Medium Altitude ABM- ASELSAN
Low altitude ABM- ASELSAN
Indegenous Naval Cruise Missiles
1000+ Altay Tank (120mm smoothbore)
UMTAS anti-tank missiles
OMTAS anti-tank missiles
Cirit laser guided missiles
10 (+10) Heavy Lift (Chinooks)
60 (+40) T-129 Attack helicopters
Spy Satellites (Gokturk 1, Gokturk 2)
6 x U-214TN AIP Submarines with balistic missile launching tubes and special forces insertion tubes
30 x ANKA MALE UAV's
6 x Reaper MALE UAV's

Theses programs alone are costing us over $100 billion. We must either be facing something big or we need to re-calibrate our threat gauges.

Originally Posted by Big K

what do you want to hear/read?

hey Turkey will try to re-build The Ottoman Empire!!!!!!!........ lol

are you happy now?

heres my thoughts about this

f-16's and f-4's are too old,

f-35's are not ready yet and will not be for a while...

typhoons are just for showing that Turkey have alternatives,

KF-X's and the new one are for defensive independence...

more indengenous weapons = less money = more jobs = better economy....

is this that hard to understand?

**TTL** · 18 Dec 10,, 08:08

If you look your list carefully you will see most of these purchases are made to replace aging systems. The main workhorses F-16s, Oliver Perries and M-60s are getting old and modernization upgrades has their limits. Turkey pursues a self-sufficiency policy so replacements for those systems are wanted to be indigenous or at least co-producted in Turkey. Others such as uavs, helos, satellites and ABM systems are long neglected areas in which we had nearly zero capacity until recently. Since such programs take lots of time it is only wise to plan ahead. Afterall we are living right next to the most problematic region of the world if you consider.

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 22 Dec 10,, 13:53

Some more details about the project emerge:

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is the Prime Contactor responsible for fuselage, integration and testing etc

TAI is the only company outside the USA to have an Advanced Composites manufactoring facility which has been specifically designed for the JSF program:
TAI Opens Advanced Composites Manufacturing Facility : Defense news
Northrop Grumman Expands Composites Manufacturing Training for Major Turkish F-35 Supplier. | Planenews Aviation News
Reinforced Plastics - The composites industry in Turkey

It is said that Turkey's indegenous fighter will also be of the same Advance Composite material used in the JSF:

TUSAS Engine Industries will be responsible for engine production: TEI > Welcome...

TUSAS Engine Industries and KALE Kalip is credited with licence production of F110-GE-100/118/129 engines.
Kale Kalip is currently in the process of licence producing the F135 engine (Used in the F-35): TURKEY'S KALEKALIP TO MAKE F135 ENGINES OF F35 FIGHTER JETS | TradingMarkets.com

Avionics, Helmet mounted Cuing system etc will be provided by ASELSAN and HAVELSAN

**kuku** · 22 Dec 10,, 17:24

Will they go for a proven engine, or will they fund a new program?

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 22 Dec 10,, 22:53

Originally Posted by kuku

Will they go for a proven engine, or will they fund a new program?

Well under the Turkish Defence Procurement agency rulling, TUSAS Engine Industries of Turkey will design, develop and produce an inhouse engine.

However, it is my opinion that the engine will be heavily influenced by the F-135 being used in the F-35. Turkey was part of the design and development phase of this engine and hence has gained alot of knowledge in this area.

It has also emerged that the aircraft will be a Twin-engined Air-to-Air role fighter with AESA radar.

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 11 Jan 11,, 06:28

Turkey appoints Turkish-American Scientist to head it's indegenous fighter program.

Turkish sources state that Professor Dr. Arsev H. Eraslan, the former chief scientist of both the NASA National Technology Transfer Center and the Office of Law Enforcement Technology and Commercialization will head Turkey's indegenous fighter program.

Professor Eraslan is credited with advising the Turkish Government back in 2005 to develop a twin engined version of the F-16.

Professor Eraslan had retired from NASA in 2005.

**Loke** · 11 Jan 11,, 15:29

Will this be another "4.5 gen fighter" or will it be a "stealth fighter" with internal weapons bays?

**Ararat** · 11 Jan 11,, 16:29

Will Turkey be making spaceships as well?

Let me get this straight, Turkey can’t even make its own basic trainer aircraft to fly in what ten years (TAI’s Hurkus)? but now they want to design and make their own "entirely indigenous and national" new generation fighter jet?

Is this going to be another "entirely Turkish made" Altay tank where 350 Million of the 500 Million allocated to the design by the government went to foreign technological firms?

You guys are funny.

**Big K** · 11 Jan 11,, 17:35

well at least Turkey is trying...i didnt hear anything from the East of Eastern Roman Empire...you guys are not even funny...

**Ararat** · 11 Jan 11,, 20:17

Originally Posted by Big K

well at least Turkey is trying......

That I agree with and I am surprised this type of attitude hasn’t been around in the past. Turkey should have been light years ahead in their aviation sector than it is now. I also agree that any further foreign updates to the F-4s and F-16s will not have the desired results and a waste of money which I think it’s what pushing Turks to be more independent (they also look at Iran's aviation accomplishments under sanctions).

Also it is not fair to compare Turkey’s position with Armenia’s; however I wished Armenia would put more effort on acquiring aircraft rather than to rely totally on surface to air defense systems (after all Mikoyan who designed the MIGs is Armenian).
Unfortunately that may not be possible at this time (besides funding) since our enemies have a large Airforce and many jets (oil money) that we couldn’t possibly compete with and be able to maintain a military balance between Azerbaijan and Armenia, hence the reliance on ADS and the best trained ground troops in the region.

With that said Armenia has designed and produced its own UAV (with a joke of a budget) that carries a domestically designed skyball (I think that is a bigger achievement), nothing especial compared to USA or Israel….just meat and bones.

**Big K** · 11 Jan 11,, 21:41

That I agree with and I am surprised this type of attitude hasn’t been around in the past.

but it was around long ago..many different people & organisations tried this and some of them succeeded as well but that spirit is surpressed or canceled by many different reasons including internal & external politics or economics.

Nuri DEMRA

NuD.38 even chosen and took orders from Danes. But that order was canceled by RPP (CHP) (after the death of Mustafa Kemal) due to internal political reasons (the founder of this aircraft company was also the founder of the first political opposition party. Nuri Demirag (the name Demirag was given by Ataturk himself for his efforts to the national railways (demir means iron and ag means network/web so he was Demirag)...

Mr. Nuri was a great man and a great patriot.

once Turkey was so poor that she could only purchase aircrafts by donations. one day it was Mr. NUri's turn. and he told that "you, as the representative of Turkey, you must not accept donations for "purchasing" but for building an indengenius Turkish aircraft type.

so he first sent engineers to West&East to learn the latests techniques then he ordered them to start a Turkish type...the result is in the pictures above.

btw a very similar story existed for automobile sector too.

as for UAV's, pls accept my congrats.

here is the Turkish exemplaire;

TURKISH AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES INC.

http://www.tai.com.tr/ds_Resource/im...a-ing-arka.pdf

TAI Anka - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 11 Jan 11,, 22:24

Originally Posted by Ararat

Will Turkey be making spaceships as well?

Let me get this straight, Turkey can’t even make its own basic trainer aircraft to fly in what ten years (TAI’s Hurkus)? but now they want to design and make their own "entirely indigenous and national" new generation fighter jet?

Is this going to be another "entirely Turkish made" Altay tank where 350 Million of the 500 Million allocated to the design by the government went to foreign technological firms?

You guys are funny.

(1) The TAI HURKUS is not a simple propeller trainer aircraft. It also has a close air support (CAS), and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) mission profile as well. It is best comparable to the US Aircraft Corporation produced A-67 Dragon (COIN). US Aircraft Corporation - A-67
(2) The TAI HURKUS is undergoing integration with Turkish made air-to-ground anti-tank missiles. It also has the ability to fly at night.
(3) Turkey has NOT been working on the TAI Hurkus for 10 years now. The contract was signed in late 2006. It is scheduled to make it's maiden flight mid this year. That is, 5 years. The US designed A-67 Dragon program also commenced late 2006. It too is still in development phase and is scheduled to enter into service this year.

TAI Hurkus Basic Trainer Aircraft - Air Force Technology
Development
The development programme of the Hurkus began in March 2006 as part of the contract signed between the SSM and TAI. Four aircraft will be designed, built, examined, verified and certified by TAI under the programme.

The aircraft was named after Turkey's first aviator Vecihi Hurkus. It was designated such during the eighth International Defence Industry Fair held in Ankara, Turkey. The indigenous design prototype of Hurkus was showcased at the 47th International Paris Air Show in June 2007

(4) Turkish Aerospace companies have the technological know-how and basis to design and produce aerospace systems. Previously, it merely did not have the funding due to recurring economic crisis.
It might be worth noting that Turkey's indegenous Earth Observation Satellite dubbed the Gokturk-2 will also be launched this year from Kazakstan.

**~~denizkuvetleri~~** · 11 Jan 11,, 22:33

Originally Posted by Ararat

Will Turkey be making spaceships as well?

Let me get this straight, Turkey can’t even make its own basic trainer aircraft to fly in what ten years (TAI’s Hurkus)? but now they want to design and make their own "entirely indigenous and national" new generation fighter jet?

Is this going to be another "entirely Turkish made" Altay tank where 350 Million of the 500 Million allocated to the design by the government went to foreign technological firms?

You guys are funny.

Turkey did not have explosive reactive armour technology. Hence, it decided to purchase this technology off the shelf in full from South-Korea's Samsung-Tekwin. There is nothing wrong with this. Instead of saying I am going to develop the technology from stratch and pour all its budget into R&D for this and stall its Tank program the Turks optained the technology with little fuss. All Turkish industry has to do now is further develop this technology using it's technolgical know-how and experience.
It must be noted that Turkey produces next generation electronic systems for all its Tanks including but not limited to the Leopard tanks purchased from Germany.