Turkey Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Will be very interesting to watch. If the program delivers in that timeframe and around predicted costs, it could become the first non aligned option for 5th gen fighter. I am assuming Korea's KFX won't be as easily offered for export since it will be cutting into the F-35's pie and the politics align so it's not like KFX could be sold to "unfriendly" countries.

Having said that, I really doubt there are going to be any customers for a 5th gen fighter before 2030, except for Pakistan. I doubt China would offer J-35 for export until it has enough for itself, if it ever even intends to before it becomes obsolete. Right now, TF-X seems to be not near even a prototype though and will have at least as many foreign inputs as KFX which surely will put export limits on it.
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
According to the Director of the Turkish Defense Industries (SSB) the price of the TF-X could get lower than $80 million. IMO that is only possible with more than 500 TF-X's sold. The Turkish air force is good for ~250 TF-X. Other countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Qatar, Azerbaijan need 5th gen fighters as well, starting from 2030.

When the TF-X rolls out on 18 March 2023, I expect a huge amount of interest in it from various countries. The TF-X might very well be the ITAR free 5th gen fighter the world is waiting for.


Sorry my friend ... can we please wait until this magical fighter is unveiled in less than a year and THEn we can talk about proces, foreign interest and so on.

Again, don't get me wrong - and most likely you won't believe me - I wish TAI all the luck it needs for this project, but by all my understanding, the understanding of several most respected analysts I spoke with there are still too many uncertainties, too much is either not known yet not (per official sources) decided which however should have been finalised until now, if they indeed plan to have an aircraft ready next in 2023.

Therefore I will sit down and wait what happens, ... but I won't hold my breath.

EDIT: corrected the wrong date
 
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sequ

Captain
Registered Member
and will have at least as many foreign inputs as KFX which surely will put export limits on it.
And let that be just the thing that the Turks are trying to prevent ;).

Sorry my friend ... can we please wait until this magical fighter is unveiled in less than a year and THEn we can talk about proces, foreign interest and so on.
But it won't be unveiled in less than a year. The 'grand' unveiling is planned to take place on 18th march 2023.

if they indeed plan to have an aircraft ready next year.
18th March 2023 is not next year. And it won't be ready to fly by then only two years later it will be.
 

sequ

Captain
Registered Member
President Erdogan opens new explosives facility.

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New Facility From MKEK Operated With M113 Electric Motor President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the Energetic Materials Production Facility Opening Event and Product Launch at MKEK Barutsan Rocket and Explosive Factory.

In the opening, the MEMATT (Mechanical Mine Clearing Equipment) vehicle developed by ASFAT in cooperation with the private enterprise, the modernized M113 vehicle and the 105 mm Boran howitzer were also exhibited.

Stating that “We will not be dependent on anyone for aircraft bombs, ammunition, missile and warhead explosives”, President Erdoğan stated that the modular gunpowder system procured from abroad will be produced “entirely with domestic resources”.
Erdogan stated that with the new facility, as the country, "The Super League has reached the new generation explosive production capability".

At the event, it was also announced that the M113 vehicles, which MKEK started to modernize, received an electric motor and battery pack. It was stated that the 25 mm weapon system to be integrated into the tower of the platform can be seen at IDEF. It has the capacity to produce 50 engines per month for the platform.

President Erdogan said, "I wish the New Generation Electric Hybrid System Armored Combat Vehicles and Boran 105 Portable Howitzer with the explosive facility we opened will be beneficial to our country, our defense industry and our TSK."​


Some specs about the modernized M113 with optional remote control:

Weight: 12300kg
Power: 616 HP
Carrying capacity: 3890kg
Torque: 6000nm
Slopes: 60/40
Battery range: 180 km
Hybrid range: 720 km
 

sequ

Captain
Registered Member
Some interesting tweets by Dr. Osman Dur (previous head of BMC Power, current head of TR Motor) about the 1000hp UTKU and 1500hp BATU engines and their transmissions:


"All military-civilian internal combustion or diesel engines are designed with domestic and national capabilities without technical support. The 1000hp transmission was designed by the technical test of DBS by BMC Power engineers, and the 1500hp transmission was designed entirely by BMC Power engineers!"


"Turkey has no problems from design to production in domestic national military and civil diesel engines.380 600 1000 1500 HP engines and 1000 HP transmission have been fired for the first time and the test phase has started, the design of the 1500 HP transmission has been frozen and its production continues!"

So BMC Power got help with the 1000hp transmission from BDSantalso and with the knowledge obtained, BMC Power designed the transmission for the 1500hp engine themselves of which the design has been completed and the production the transmission parts has started!

I told you guys this is a daily chore. Especially now when we are approaching the grand IDEF event, starting on the 25th of May!
 

sequ

Captain
Registered Member
My personal opinion about the changing thrust figures of the TF-X from 20000lb to 27000lb and the recently stated thrust figure of 30000lb.

Seeing as Rolls Royce is helping with the design of the engine, they would most probably use their experience with the high thrust-to-weight ratio EJ200. This engine has a max thrust of 20000lb in its plain vanilla variant. But the Eurojet consortium got a requirement somewhere in the 2000's to improve the thrust figure of the EJ200 by 20% initially to 23000lb (stage I) and by 30% eventually to 27000lb (stage II).
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I think that the initial plan of Rolls Royce vis-a-vis the TF-X was to provide help to develop a EJ200 like engine, but with the changing requirements and perhaps some tough negotiations here and there, Rolls Royce upped the stakes by using the stage II experience to help the Turks to develop a similar engine with similar capabilities, hence the 27000lb figure all in the same relatively small and light-weight EJ200 size of 4m length, 74cm diameter and most probably with a bit of an increase in weight from the original ~1000kg.

But now with the 30000lb thrust figure given I am of the opinion that the Turkish engine is going to be an inspired and up-scaled version (around 1500kg dry weight) of the original EJ200 with the same thrust-to-weight ratio of ~9, but with a potential of growth of up to 39000lb of thrust!

This would make fairly sense as the TF-X might need room for future upgrades which need more power, like directed energy weapons, higher power electronics etc.
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
But it won't be unveiled in less than a year. The 'grand' unveiling is planned to take place on 18th march 2023.

18th March 2023 is not next year. And it won't be ready to fly by then only two years later it will be.


You are correct! My fault. ;)

Otherwise I tried once again to put together my concerns and please DON't rate this as if I would wish them to fail:

Again, the main problem with this project is simply IMO that no-one wants to wish Turkey bad luck or anything bad, but that most international, reasonable and well respected analysts all have too many open questions and that so far too few of them are answered.

In return any such critical question, remark or doubt is always alone rated an insult and replied in a most aggressive way.
IMO a forum is exactly the place to exchange opinions, even contradicting ones, to ask open questions and to get answers and explanations. If one expects only expects "whao huu ... the best fighter yet to come!" and nothing more, shall leave a discussion.

So in summary if you look at this program as an outsider we have two side, both as different as they can be:

On the one side - the official one: The TFX/MMU is is a most impressive fighter, a great design and on paper the fighter looks very promising.

On the other side several international analysts and me too have several grave concerns in regard to the overall timeline, budget and especially its engines. This is based on the one side on the "unique social, economic and political situation" in Turkey, which I rate unsecured and even more based on the fact that besides what Turkish sources claim the officially agreed use of F110 engines were so far not announced by either the USA or GE.

This is in strict contrast to any other foreign use of GE engines, be that in India, South Korea and so on and given the latest - to put it mildly - political dispute between the USA and Turkey and the lack of any official US confirmation I am doubtful.

First:
As such my biggest concern are indeed the engines. At least by my understanding (and here I'm open for corrections) it is a fact, that even if a country assembles or manufactures a US engine it cannot simply use it in another product without permission. At least by my understanding, the USA are very strict on this.

So in summary: I would be very much more optimistic if anyone could share not a YouTube-video claiming "it is so" but a credible source telling something about the terms of conditions for GE F110 that Turkey signed. Any bashing down of questions is neither constructive nor helpful.

Even more such nationalistic, stupid claims like "we could even copy it and GE won't even care!" or "if they don't agree, we will go the Russian way!" is not a proof for the agreement to use a TEI built F110. Only the US government - not even GE and surely never TEI - decides on the use of US high end engines. Why alone noting this fact is rated an insult by some is beyond my understanding.

Again, such an agreement is maybe done, but why then does no US source and most of all GE mention this, which is most unusual since GE usually mentioned any use of their engines by a foreign partner?

As such: without any authorisation from the US government, there is NO F110 available for the TFX unless Turkey ignores the US intellectual properties which in return even worse consequences.

Therefore in short: My wish for any discussion on this type would be an honest, open minded and civilised discussion, but without these points of concerns solved (and these are not my concerns alone) all such claims the TFX prototype 01 will be being ready in 2022 and will fly in 2023 is far from assured regardless what some constantly claim.

Second:
Any other alternative like you noted yourself "then we can take a Russian engine" has an even more delaying effect. From what I read, the prototype will use F110 engines and do you really think if TAI must change to a Russian one, this can be done so easily? Even more do you think the Russians will sell their best engines - and nothing less is what Turkey demands - with full ToT?

Third:
Even if the problem for an interim engine MIGHT be solved, what about the serial engine? There are in fact so many contradicting reports about two different Turkish companies developing it, one of them assisted by RR? But again do you think the British will sell their best engines - and again nothing less is what Turkey demands - with full ToT? IMO NEVER!

Even more you are suggesting in your last post an engine in the thrust range of 30000lb... why not even more since it sounds even more impressive!

But can develop RR such an engine - in fact they never did before develop such a high-thrust military engine in recent years within the expected time? Will they then provide full ToT? And how long will it take to get this monster engine ready for serial production? Russia, China and others with far more experience and budget failed and Turkey wants to do it ... I'm sceptical.

Anyway, even if the engine issue for the prototypes is solved, there are still mismatches considering the TF-X's development timeline:
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1.) First is that of TF-X prototype manufacturing. From Turkish sources I read that 5 prototypes in total are to be manufactured in EMD phase. Of these, 2 are to be powered by F110 (hence the 5 F110 engines Turkey allegedly "already ordered and have been delivered/under deliveries") and the rest of those 3 to be powered by Turkish turbofan engine.

The problem is, the Turks are planning to fly the engine for the first time in 2028. TF-X mass production is planned to be 2029. That means, until just 1 year before mass production, those 3 prototypes with Turkish engines are out there with no engine to fly with. In other words, the Turks should carry out their EMD process with just 2 prototypes which is ridiculous.


2.) Secondly, I've got to remember, that during the first bid for the development of the Turkish engine, where two parties, TEI and TAEC consortium participated, TEI have claimed that they could develop an indigenous engine given 14 years time. IIRC this was during 2019 or something like that. TAEC was chosen in that bid but ultimately the whole bid fell through because RR were done with the Turkish demands for IP rights.

Soon enough TR Motor emerged with TAI's share in it. Considering this and the fact that TEI, a TAI subsidiary, is the only company in Turkey that has sizeable gas turbine engine expertise and know-how, it is reasonable to think that the engineers of TR Motor would probably be TEI engineers.

So when this is the case, how come does TR Motor all the sudden claim that they could develop a turbofan engine for TF-X ready for mass production and application until 2029? That is just 10 years from 2019, 4 years shy of what TEI claimed was the necessary timeline to develop such an engine. Considering the fact that outside parties like GE and RR are still not involved in this program, there seems no factor to exist, that would help Turkey shorten their development timeline for a whopping 4 years.

Apart from all these, the plan to develop a 4.5th generation aircraft, the block 1 aircrafts, by 2029 and further develop a full-blown 5th generation aircraft by 2031, the block 2 aircrafts, is rather questionable. What kind of development plan is it, that a 4.5th generation aircraft becomes a 5th gen aircraft within 2 years time?

Well this at least is just my personal thought unlike the questions above which are based on the information given out by no other than the Turkish officials.

Therefore again, I'm open for any decent discussion. I'm more than eager to learn and be corrected. And I will apologise if I'm wrong, but the fact alone that RR helps, there is a 10 Billion $$ budget and that TAI manufactured certain parts for the F135 or the F-16 and F-35 does not mean they are capable to do it on their own. And a huge national ego does not help much ...

But let's start the discussion.
 
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sequ

Captain
Registered Member
You are correct! My fault. ;)
You have made this fault on many more occasions than just now. It is as if you are doing it deliberately.

Otherwise I tried once again to put together my concerns and please DON't rate this as if I would wish them to fail:
Your emotional replies to anything to do with the TF-X tells me otherwise.

Again, the main problem with this project is simply IMO that no-one wants to wish Turkey bad luck or anything bad, but that most international, reasonable and well respected analysts all have too many open questions and that so far too few of them are answered.
While you quoted non-mentioned defense analysts, I rely on the word of PhD's in engineering like Kotil, Demir, Dur and Aksit.

In return any such critical question, remark or doubt is always alone rated an insult and replied in a most aggressive way.
Perhaps it has to do with your constant knee-jerk reactions about the validity of the TF-X program?

IMO a forum is exactly the place to exchange opinions, even contradicting ones, to ask open questions and to get answers and explanations.
Sure.

If one expects only expects "whao huu ... the best fighter yet to come!" and nothing more, shall leave a discussion.
Now that is a strawman. I've seen multiple discussion between you and others on different forums, and while there are some emotional discussion between you and others, there are also civil discussions.

On the other side several international analysts and me too have several grave concerns in regard to the overall timeline, budget and especially its engines.
Apart from 'their'concern about the engines, there should be no concern about the funding nor the timeline. If they think the TF-X will fly in 2023 like you so many times have claimed then they are wrong. And like I've previously mentioned, the R&D budget is $10 billion.

This is based on the one side on the "unique social, economic and political situation" in Turkey, which I rate unsecured and even more based on the fact that besides what Turkish sources claim the officially agreed use of F110 engines were so far not announced by either the USA or GE.
Yes, I've have stated this previously that the geopolitical en military-technological developments in Turkey are constantly changing and is flux. And yes there still is not an official US source stating that the F110 is allowed to be used on the TF-X prototypes.

This is in strict contrast to any other foreign use of GE engines, be that in India, South Korea and so on and given the latest - to put it mildly - political dispute between the USA and Turkey and the lack of any official US confirmation I am doubtful.
I also have my doubts but we all have to wait and see. But until then I rely on the words of the heads of the involved Turkish companies and institutions.
 

sequ

Captain
Registered Member
Second:

"Any other alternative like you noted yourself "then we can take a Russian engine" has an even more delaying effect."
The Russian engines that are roughly equivalent in size, power and tech level as the F110 is the AL-31F series. Seeing as the prototype hasn't even been build yet a conversion to the Al-31 format should not be that much of a problem.

"From what I read, the prototype will use F110 engines"
But you were doubting this before but now not anymore??

"and do you really think if TAI must change to a Russian one, this can be done so easily?"
Easily? I don't know. Doable, yes, since I've explained above that the Al-31 series are roughly equivalent to the F110 in every metric.

"Even more do you think the Russians will sell their best engines - and nothing less is what Turkey demands - with full ToT?"
That is not what the Turks are demanding nor are going to demand. The plan is to use a handful of foreign engines in the prototypes and perhaps in the LRIP until an indigenous engine is ready. There is no need for any ToT for that, just technical assistance.
And the Al-31F are not the best engines the Russians have and if they are so, they've supplied the Chinese with the same engines for years and even improved ones for use in the J-10B/C and J-20 prototypes. I'm sure that from a geopolitical and prestige stand-point, the Russians would love to supply their engines to Turkey, just like they supplied them for the J-20.
 
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sequ

Captain
Registered Member
Third:

"Even if the problem for an interim engine MIGHT be solved, what about the serial engine? There are in fact so many contradicting reports about two different Turkish companies developing it, one of them assisted by RR?"

Yes it is difficult to keep track on the developments surrounding the engines. The deal back in 2017 was that Kale and RR where going to jointly develop an engine for the TF-X in a joint-venture called TAEC (Turkish Air Engine Company) with 51% of shares for Kale and 49% for RR.
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. This joint-venture was put under the umbrella of TRMotor with other companies like TAI and BMC. RR objected to this and eventually BMC got booted out of TR Motor and thus RR entered the deal again. Now what exactly happened behind the scenes during negotiations and the like, we don't know, but we do know that RR is back in the game.

"But again do you think the British will sell their best engines - and again nothing less is what Turkey demands - with full ToT? IMO NEVER!"

RR is not there to 'sell' and engine nor is there going to be a ToT. RR is there to provide technical assistance building upon their vast experience with turbine engines. From the mouth of the director of RR Defense: "Director of Rolls-Royce’s Defense Group Mr. Chris Cholerton expressed that they were happy to seize the opportunity to collaborate with Kale Group within the scope of the Turkish Fighter Program to develop an indigenous engine, the Intellectual Property Rights of which will entirely be possessed by Turkey and which will not be subject to export restrictions. Mr. Cholerton stated that as Rolls-Royce, they took the initiative to establish an Advanced Manufacturing Technology Centre (AMTC) in 2015 and added that Kale Group put forth Turkey’s faith in becoming a global player in Defense and Aerospace industry. Mr. Cholerton continued, “Turkey’s enthusiasm in this area thrills us as well. We believe that we will be playing a key role in Turkey’s establishing a worldwide powerful Defense and Aerospace Industry.”

"Even more you are suggesting in your last post an engine in the thrust range of 30000lb... why not even more since it sounds even more impressive!"

It is not a statement by me but by the head of TAI during an interview on the 25 of april:
. I've merely used logical duduction to make my case about the engine being inspired by the EJ200 and thus with possible room for future improvement. Which isn't far fetched as RR co-designed the EJ200 which was based on RR's own XG-40 project.

"But can develop RR such an engine - in fact they never did before develop such a high-thrust military engine in recent years within the expected time? Will they then provide full ToT? And how long will it take to get this monster engine ready for serial production? Russia, China and others with far more experience and budget failed and Turkey wants to do it ... I'm sceptical."

They joined in the engine partnership with Kale in 2017 with the engine to be ready by 2030-2032. Do your own calculations.

"Anyway, even if the engine issue for the prototypes is solved, there are still mismatches considering the TF-X's development timeline:
(via
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)"

You want everything to be set in stone years from now. It doesn't work like that on these highly advanced projects. There is bound to be delays and hick-ups and thus the timeline should be taken more as a reference and nothing solid. IMO the prototypes and Bock-I are going to be flying with 4th gen engines and the Block-II with the indigenous engine. We will have to wait and see.


"Therefore again, I'm open for any decent discussion. I'm more than eager to learn and be corrected. And I will apologise if I'm wrong, but the fact alone that RR helps, there is a 10 Billion $$ budget and that TAI manufactured certain parts for the F135 or the F-16 and F-35 does not mean they are capable to do it on their own. And a huge national ego does not help much ..."

Is see that the main ingredients for the successful completion of this project are present: money, technological base (single crystal turbine blade production, which will most probably improve further during this decade), technological support in the form of BAE and RR, but above all political will and ambition, which unfortunately you see as national ego.

We really have to wait for more information to come up as the project progresses.


Just sit back and relax will you!
 
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