Tag: Aselsan

  • Turkey’s Aselsan secures Sikorsky helicopter subcontract

    Turkey’s Aselsan secures Sikorsky helicopter subcontract

    May 7 (Reuters) – Turkish defence and electronics company Aselsan will supply parts and software for Sikorsky BlackHawk military helicopters in a deal that will guarantee the company around $100 million in orders annually for the next five to six years.

    The deal is part of Turkey’s $3.5 billion order for 109 helicopters from United Technologies Corp’s Sikorsky unit, which as usual in such deals is tied in to orders and work for domestic manufacturers.

    “Right now we’re talking about 109 helicopters,” Cengiz Ergeneman told Reuters on the sidelines of a defence exhibition in Istanbul. “There will also be an export order of around the same amount….which (combined) will bring us business worth around $100 million annually for the next five to six years.”

    The 109 helicopters which Turkey agreed to buy in 2011 will be assembled in Turkey. The main contractor is Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) with components to be supplied by Sikorsky, Aselsan and other Turkish companies.

    The negotiations for the subcontracts were about to be finalised, Turkey’s undersecretary for defence industries (SSM) said in a statement on Monday.

    “In the scope of the program, Avionic suit will be designed by Aselsan, engine will be manufactured by TEI under the license of GE and landing gear and transmission will be manufactured by ALP Aviation which specializes in Black Hawk helicopter transmission system.”

    via Turkey’s Aselsan secures Sikorsky helicopter subcontract | Reuters.

  • Top Turkish Firm Develops First Local Friend-or-Foe Gear

    Top Turkish Firm Develops First Local Friend-or-Foe Gear

    ANKARA — Turkey’s largest defense company — Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret — has successfully developed the country’s first indigenous identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system, and delivered the first prototypes to the Turkish military.

    Two prototype electronic systems were delivered to the armed forces last month and mark a “first-time achievement” for Turkey’s local industry, officials and analysts here said. “This puts Turkey into a small list of seven countries that have the capabilities to manufacture IFF systems,” Aselsan CEO Cengiz Ergeneman told reporters.

    Aselsan signed a contract with Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense in December 2006 to design, develop and manufacture the prototypes. The contract price for the prototypes is classified.

    The company now awaits a fresh contract with the country’s procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, for serial production. Aselsan officials said a contract could be signed later this year.

    The prototypes developed by Aselsan passed a final round of performance tests in November. They will be installed on Turkey’s F-4 fighter jets and air defense radars and, at later stages, other aerial and naval platforms — except F-16 fighter jets.

    “The system is entirely indigenous and marks a first time for the Turkish industry,” said Ceyhun Ozguven, an analyst based here. “This is certainly a big leap forward in Turkish military electronics.” A procurement official familiar with the program said the production contract would involve scores of Aselsan IFF systems and could go up to $100 million initially. The number will likely rise as more Turkish platforms queue up to be outfitted.

    IFF enables military and national interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the interrogator. IFF may be used by both military and civilian aircraft. The major military benefits of IFF include preventing “friendly fire.”

    Aselsan has developed and produced two IFF prototypes for the Turkish military, both of which are for medium-range coverage. Its transponder IFF systems are to be outfitted on naval and aerial military assets, and the interrogator IFF systems for air defense radars. Aselsan’s two major local subcontractors for the prototype outfitted into an F-4/E 2020 aircraft were privately owned electronics and telecom concern Netas Telekomunikasyon and Bilgem, an information technologies and advanced technological research center of Turkey’s state scientific research institute, TUBITAK.

    Aselsan, founded in 1975, is owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation. With more than 4,200 employees, Aselsan operates under four main departments: communication services; defense systems; radar, electronic warfare and intelligence systems; and microelectronics, guidance and electro-optics.

    In 2011, Aselsan inked an approximately $1 billion contract to sell low- and medium-altitude air defense systems to the Turkish military. This is the largest single contract awarded to a local company in recent years.

    Under that contract, Aselsan is developing all radar, fire control, command-and-control and communications systems for both low- and medium-altitude components of the program. Aselsan also will develop and produce missile heads and data links.

    Aselsan’s market value was at $1 billion in 2011, according to independent auditors. It has a backlog of orders worth $4.3 billion until 2018.

    In 2011, Aselsan reported 1.5 billion Turkish lira ($880 million) in sales, 160.7 million lira in profits and 83 million lira in exports.

    via Top Turkish Firm Develops First Local Friend-or-Foe Gear | Defense News | defensenews.com.

  • Aselsan to Build 4G System for Turkey by 2016 With Partners

    Aselsan to Build 4G System for Turkey by 2016 With Partners

    Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi & Ticaret AS, a producer of civilian and defense electronic systems, and partners will build fourth-generation mobile phone software and equipment, allowing Turkish operators to avoid costly imports.

    Aselsan, along with Netas Telekomunikasyon AS and Argela, a software company owned by Turk Telekomunikasyon AS, signed a $46.8 million contract with the Turkish government, according to Transport, Maritime and Telecommunications Minister Binali Yildirim.

    “Turkish telecom operators spend billions of dollars for telecommunication equipment,” Yildirim said today at an Istanbul conference where the agreement was signed. “We have to cut that spending and get them to use locally made equipment instead of imports.”

    Turkey’s three mobile operators — Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Vodafone Group Plc and the Avea Iletisim Hizmetleri AS unit of Turk Telekom — bought equipment from suppliers including Ericsson AB and Huawei Technologies Co. for third-generation systems when they got government licenses in 2008. The three operators spent about 19.4 billion liras ($11 billion) on investments from 2008 to the end of September last year, primarily for third-generation equipment, according to telecom market regulator BTK.

    The new system for civilian and military use will be capable of delivering speeds of 100 megabits per second for mobile and 1,000 Mbps for fixed-line telecommunication, Yildirim said. Speeds for current third-generation mobile systems average 10 Mbps and can occasionally reach 40 Mbps, Ahmet Hamdi Atalay, a member of the executive committee of Netas, said at the conference.

    Mobile Transmission

    The Aselsan-led group will complete the development of the system, also known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, by 2016 for commercial use and 2017 for the military, the Ankara-based company said in a filing with the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The system includes development of software and building of base stations for mobile transmission.

    Aselsan shares rose as much as 6.4 percent in Istanbul and were up 3.4 percent at 9.10 liras at 5:15 p.m., a record high.

    via Aselsan to Build 4G System for Turkey by 2016 With Partners – Bloomberg.

  • Turkey: F-16s can now hit Israel targets

    Turkey: F-16s can now hit Israel targets

    Turkish fighter jets
    Turkish fighter jets
    Turkey has developed a new system for its US-made F-16 fighter jets that will allow them for the first time to fire at Israeli targets, a report says.

    The new Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) — an identification system designed for command and control — developed by Turkey’s Military Electronics Industry (ASELSAN) will replace the US version of the system that was being run on the fighter jets so far, Turkey’s Star Gazete newspaper reported on Tuesday.

    The US system identified all Israeli targets as a ‘friend,’ thus preventing the Turkish fighter jets from firing at them automatically, even if the Turkish pilots were ordered to fire at them, the report said.

    The new system, however, will allow Turkey to define its enemies itself, the report said.

    The Turkish IFF will be mounted on all Turkish fighter jets, military vessels and submarines in the near future.

    The report noted that the new IFF system has been developed in a time of increasing tension between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

    The US-made IFF, categorized all Israeli targets, alongside NATO targets, as ‘friend,’ despite the fact that Israel is not a member state of NATO.

    http://www.presstv.ir, Sep 13, 2011

  • U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul

    U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul

    U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul

    May 16, 2011 – 6:17pm, by Joshua Kucera

    blog bugpitA U.S.. naval ship, the USS Mahan, visited Istanbul last week for a short port visit. These sorts of things happen all the time and aren’t usually noteworthy. But the blog Bosphorus Naval News paid close attention to this visit, and noted that the visit may have been driven by commercial, rather than merely friendly, motivations. The destroyer’s visit happened to take place during a big defense exposition, IDEF, and the U.S. ambassador’s comments at the expo used the ship as a showpiece for U.S. defense industry:

    I join Commander Mondlak and his crew in inviting you to tour the proud USS Mahan. This fine example of American high technology and advanced engineering, and is itself the result of partnerships between numerous American companies, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas, General Electric, Alliant, Gould, and Sikorsky, many of whom are represented at IDEF.

    In particular, the Mahan has a sort of radar that is under consideration for the next generation of Turkish ships. And U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin had just signed a deal with Turkish manufacturer Havelsan involving production of those radars.

    The signed contract of course raises the question whether the next generation of Turkish warships will have SPY radars and components of AEGIS systems on board.

    The blog, in a separate post, takes issue with that deal given that Turkey also manufactures naval radars:

    One of the contracts signed during the fair was between Havelsan and Lockheed Martin for the integration of SPY phased radar systems to the CMS made by Havelsan. The SPY radars are the backbone of the US Navy’s AEGIS air and anti ballistic missile defence system.

    Well this question must be asked: On one hand there is a local electronics power house like ASELSAN that is trying to develop naval radar systems on the other hand you sign a deal with a US company about the most important and significant air defence radar systems. How will this deal effect the local development and why it was necessary.

    And from an American perspective, one might ask: how often are these sorts of port calls made for commercial reasons? Did Lockheed reimburse the U.S. Navy for the expenses it incurred on this sales visit?

    via U.S. Navy Mixes Business and Politics in Istanbul | EurasiaNet.org.