Turkey Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

China doesn't sell S-400 systems. China offered to sell Turkey the FD-2000 like a decade ago but the US State Department interfered.
The S-400 deal has nothing to do with Russia not entering Idlib. Turkey has plenty of joint projects with Russia including TurkStream and nuclear power plants. Have those something to do with Idlib too?

gelgoog said:

China doesn't sell S-400 systems. China offered to sell Turkey the FD-2000 over a decade back but the US State Department interfered.
The S-400 deal has nothing to do with Russia not entering Idlib. Turkey has plenty of joint projects with Russia including TurkStream and nuclear power plants. Have those something to do with Idlib too?

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Russia want Turkey off US military hardware. CAATSA does this. Turkey buying S-400 from Russia triggers CAATSA. This achieves Russia's goal. Idlib is only a minor issue. A few million refugees is not something Turkey can't handle. With F-35 and TF-X off the table for Turkey, Turkey will be forced to buy Su-57 from Russia to phase out F-16.

MarkD said:

Russia want Turkey off US military hardware. CAATSA does this. Turkey buying S-400 from Russia triggers CAATSA. This achieves Russia's goal. Idlib is only a minor issue. A few million refugees is not something Turkey can't handle. With F-35 and TF-X off the table for Turkey, Turkey will be forced to buy Su-57 from Russia to phase out F-16.

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Oh come on, talk is cheep!
Come back to reality: Turkey won't buy Su-57 in the same way they won't phase out the F-16. It is so far and for long the best, the TAF will have ... and the TFX will fail.

So please stop with this fan-boy theories.

I doubt Russia will export the Su-57 before the second iteration of it with electromechanical actuators comes out. That won't arrive earlier than in two years time assuming there aren't any delays. Plus I doubt many of their possible customers (like India) would purchase it before the second stage Izd 30 engines are available. Many of their possible customers have Flankers already and the extra boost in capabilities isn't worth it yet. Many weapon systems are still in development. Plus the Flankers have a huge spare parts pool available and the Su-57 simply doesn't. Who would want to buy until the RuAF itself has it in numbers and has worked out the kinks in the design using it in active duty? If Turkey needed to buy something now it would more likely get some Su-30/35 like aircraft which I doubt they would want at the moment. Egypt is going to get some Su-35s because they have the Israeli air force right next door with the F-15I and Egypt's F-16s are old hat. This isn't the case for Turkey.

I don't see how Turkey would have the money to design and build something like the TF-X. I think it is over ambitious. But we will see.

Deino said:

... and the TFX will fail.

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Why would it though? If they can source an engine from somewhere, they should be able to build the rest in a decade. It's much easier to design and build 5th gen aircraft today then it was at the time the Raptor was built. If they can even get to 80% of the Raptor, that's a decent 5th gen platform. Of course, by the time the TFX would be flying, 6th gen prototypes would already be flying as well in NATO and probably China as well (albeit, probably with a 5th gen level engine.) The biggest challenge (and achievement) in a fighter is the engine. If you can side-step that hurdle entirely, as countries like Sweden do, the rest you can get away with.

With that said, if Turkey's strategic goal is to truly be independent, then it should also be laying the industrial foundation to build its own powerplants. The TFX with an imported motor is not enough to complete that objective.

Mohsin77 said:

Why would it though? If they can source an engine from somewhere, they should be able to build the rest in a decade. It's much easier to design and build 5th gen aircraft today then it was at the time the Raptor was built. If they can even get to 80% of the Raptor, that's a decent 5th gen platform. Of course, by the time the TFX would be flying, 6th gen prototypes would already be flying as well in NATO and probably China as well (albeit, probably with a 5th gen level engine.) The biggest challenge (and achievement) in a fighter is the engine. If you can side-step that hurdle entirely, as countries like Sweden do, the rest you can get away with.

With that said, if Turkey's strategic goal is to truly be independent, then it should also be laying the industrial foundation to build its own powerplants. The TFX with an imported motor is not enough to complete that objective.

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I might be wrong but their TFX seems more ambitious than India's. They have no experience in designing and manufacturing a true indigenous fighter jet(India has Tejas, Ajeet, Marut etc) before and it seems they want to jump straight into 5th gen tech. Some of their major weapons platform are licensed production(Altay, ATAK etc)

Just to give an example of how 5th gen tech is difficult, South Korea has some experience in fighter jets and they're building a new jet. Even with the US allowing some tech transfers of F35, the Koreans stated it would be 4.5th gen not 5th gen for now. But the US blocked F35 sales to Turkey, meaning a tech transfer is unlikely and they will have to start from scratch, like the Chinese did. If it does happen, maybe what @Deino meant by failure is that it will fail to deliver on its stated goals, whatever those are.

The only way Turkey can do it, I think, is with outside help from either the EU NATO countries, Russia or China.
Even Sweden if you look at it, they license production of a US engine and buy the radar from Italy. Their "secret sauce" is basically custom airframe design (which they have uninterrupted experience in doing all the way since the 1st generation jet age post WWII) and the avionics. Most of the weapon systems are also imported. Imagine the US convinces the rest of NATO not to export missiles, engines, or radar to Turkey for example. That would make the prospect for any TF-X project under the NATO umbrella highly questionable.

I think South Korea had a much more viable plan starting with the trainer aircraft/light jet first. While Turkey might be able to leverage some of their expertise with drones and light aircraft and use this to provide native avionics the rest is more questionable. I think they do have a GE engine production facility but how much of that is actually produced in Turkey? I doubt they produce their own jet engine turbine blades for example. Even a much larger country with a more robust economy like Japan has lots of issues producing modern engines.

Turkey has lots of experience overhauling/redesigning avionics and other internals for the F-16 and making new copies, like what China used to do with Su-27/J-11. TAI also used to make composite components for F-35.

T-50 was basically also a mod of the F-16, except with some airframe changes. It was also not a clean sheet design.

Mohsin77 said:

Why would it though? If they can source an engine from somewhere, they should be able to build the rest in a decade. It's much easier to design and build 5th gen aircraft today then it was at the time the Raptor was built. If they can even get to 80% of the Raptor, that's a decent 5th gen platform. Of course, by the time the TFX would be flying, 6th gen prototypes would already be flying as well in NATO and probably China as well (albeit, probably with a 5th gen level engine.) The biggest challenge (and achievement) in a fighter is the engine. If you can side-step that hurdle entirely, as countries like Sweden do, the rest you can get away with.

With that said, if Turkey's strategic goal is to truly be independent, then it should also be laying the industrial foundation to build its own powerplants. The TFX with an imported motor is not enough to complete that objective.

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Simply since nothing fits. Timeframe/schedule, performance & cost, ...
- They claim a fighter in dimensions and performances in the league above the F-15 but have so far built not a single own aircraft type.
- assembling in licence or manufacturing as a subcontractor give you at best some expertise but not all they need.
- They want to do this by a schedule that is plain impossible even for countries with much larger experience.
- They want to accomplish this all with a budget that is plain unrealistic.
- They want to use F110 engines for the prototypes but neither GE has confirmed this use (quite uncommon in comparison to other similar cases) nor the USA (which is a mandatory MUST).
- They want to replace these engines for the following prototypes with a clean-sheet engine, that is not even specified, after RR bailed out due to unrealistic demands on ToT and in a time much lesser any country with vastly more experience in engine design.
They simply have ZERO experience especially in such a sophisticated engine (just look; The Altai's powerpack is still a failure, the small turboshaft for the small helicopter has just begun with its first test and besides assembling F110s for GE, there is no technical base) Just see how Russia struggled with their Izd.30 engine, how China fights for the WS-15 ...) As such, a comparable engine on their own in 2028 as they claim is PLAIN IMPOSSIBLE and so how will they roll out a prototype next year when design is not even finished. Just look at the KFX?

In fact, nothing fits and they know it ... it is nothing but a hoax.

Let's take the domestic engine off the table, that's not even a question (there's no way Turkey will produce an engine in a decade, period.) As I said, if they can source an engine (the US is not the only solution), then I think the TFX is still in the game.