Turkey is going to produce its first entirely indigenous fighter jet, to be fielded by 2023, the country's defense minister Vecdi Gönül announced this week. From Hurriyet Daily News:
Gönül told reporters after a meeting of the Defense Industry Executive Committee that the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, Turkey's procurement agency, would start talks with Turkish Aerospace Industries, the country's main aerospace company, for a "conceptual design" of a fighter aircraft and a jet trainer to be built after the year 2020.
"This … effectively is a decision for the making of Turkey's first fighter aircraft," he said...
Minister Gönül said Turkey's newly designed fighter aircraft "would be a next-generation type, would replace the [U.S.-made] F-4Es and would function well with the F-16 and the F-35." He therefore confirmed that the new aircraft mostly would be meant for air-to-air fighting.
Unfortunately, Gönül did not explain why Turkey would do such a thing. It's already planning to buy about 100 F-35s, the next-generation U.S.-built fighter, and had been discussing with Eurofighter to buy some Typhoon jets, but not any more. Why would it make sense to build their own instead?
His rhetoric at the announcement of the fighter plan did suggest some national-pride motivation:
The minister said Turkey may cooperate with South Korea, but implied that this is a small possibility. "We can manufacture the new fighter aircraft with them, we don't rule this out. But the decision we have taken now calls for the production of a totally national and original aircraft," he said.
(Emphasis added.) The comments on the Hurriyet story (and yes, they're in English, so certainly not a representative sample of Turkish opinion, but still) are mainly skeptical, and generally ask why Turkey would spend so much money on this when there are so many economic development needs in the country. And a Hurriyet columnist takes a skeptical look at the feasibility of the plan, in a piece called "We’ll make fighter jets! (and spaceships too…)":
Things may take an even more humorous turn with the involvement of TAI, our national aerospace powerhouse. I could not hide my smile in front of the defense official friend upon Minister Gönül’s announcement, especially when I remembered that TAI had been bogged down with developing a simple trainer for the past several (oh, more than several!) years. The Hurkus, TAI’s basic trainer, is yet to make a maiden flight, but a photo at the TAI premises shows it flying over Turkish skies thanks to Turkish engineering miracles – not aircraft making but photo-shopping!
Apparently, trainer aircraft and drones are systems too complex for Turkish engineering. On the other hand, kites and model planes would be too simple. I would suggest something in between for a nice start, rather than an agile fighter jet with air-to-air combat role. Maybe big model planes or kites equipped with rockets would do. Should Minister Gönül insist on a fighter aircraft flying over our skies and safeguarding the homeland, TAI’s engineers will have to do overtime on more photo-shopping projects.
But “the Sultan” – I increasingly warming to the name – will certainly capture the average voter who would be content with a photo-shopped warplane. He won’t care if there really is a Turkish-made aircraft. Just the news of it will suffice to thrill him – and make him proud of his government. See from now on how the “yellow newspapers” will cover the “big news.”
So, how likely is it that we'll see a "Sultan" flying by 2023?
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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