Turkish Forum

Tag: helicopter

  • Turkey to begin manufacturing national helicopter within next 5 years

    Turkey to begin manufacturing national helicopter within next 5 years

    Turkey plans to begin manufacturing its own national military helicopter within the next five years, the country’s defense minister has said.

    ismet yilmaz defense minister

    Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz submitted his ministry’s budget for 2012 to the parliamentary planning and budget commission on Friday. Speaking during the commission meeting, Yılmaz said Turkey aims to meet domestic demand as well as that of other countries in the region with the new helicopter manufacturing plans.

    Yılmaz said Turkey would also begin to design and develop warplanes and training aircraft. Turkey would also design air defense systems and begin production within next five years, he added.

    The size of the world helicopter market is currently estimated at $20 billion. The volume of Turkey’s defense industry is about $2.7 billion. It is estimated that Turkey’s defense industry exports will multiply several fold with the domestic production of military helicopters.

    The total worth of various defense projects Turkey is currently undertaking is about $10 billion. Some $7 billion of this is allocated to the military’s helicopter project. In the latest purchase of this kind, Turkey bought 109 helicopters from the US-based Sikorsky company for $3.5 billion.

    Turkey is co-producing helicopters with Italy in a joint project called ATAK, but Turkey’s dependence on foreign technology remains unchanged when acquiring new helicopters. ATAK, military officials said, has contributed significantly to Turkey’s growing technical knowhow, which will be crucial for the national helicopter project.

    Defense Minister Yılmaz said tenders on clearing land mines from the country’s border with Syria will be held in 2012, adding that the ministry aims to clear border territories off mines by the end of 2016.

    via Turkey to begin manufacturing national helicopter within next 5 years.

  • Turkey to produce its national light helicopter

    Turkey to produce its national light helicopter

    ÜMİT ENGİNSOY

    ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

    Authorities have launched a program to design, develop and produce Turkey’s first national helicopter within the next five years. The country will probably select a foreign partner with large marketing capabilities, an official says.

    turkey to produce its national light helicopter 2011 10 23 l

    This photo shows a UH-72A Lakota light utility helicopter, used by the US army. Turkey is planning to produce a national helicopter, weighing less than 5,500 kilograms. Company photo.

    Turkey’s defense procurement agency has formally pushed the button to launch an ambitious program to design, develop and produce the country’s first national helicopter, a light platform weighing less than 5,500 kilograms.

    “We aim to build a platform designed by Turkish engineers, with customized sub-systems that also can compete on international markets with its performance and price. The first national helicopter will be sold to the Turkish market and then to international buyers,” the procurement office, known as the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, or SSM, said in a statement on its website recently.

    A senior SSM official familiar with the program said requests for proposals would soon be issued to international manufacturers willing to cooperate with Turkey on this project. The program is expected to cost Turkey billions of dollars in the next few decades, sources say.

    Potential respondents

    Potential respondents to the planned request for proposal include the U.S. helicopter maker Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Italy’s AgustaWestland. Earlier this year, Sikorsky defeated AgustaWestland in Turkey’s multibillion-dollar medium-sized utility helicopter competition. Turkey hopes to select its foreign partner in the light utility helicopter program next year.

    One procurement official said Turkey wanted a foreign partner that can bring marketing advantages to the light utility helicopter program. “It’s not that we can’t make that helicopter ourselves, we can make it. But we would prefer to work with a company that has large marketing capabilities in third markets also,” said the official.

    In a separate helicopter effort, Turkey in August signed a government-to-government deal with the United States to buy six Boeing-made CH-47 heavy-lift military transport helicopters, the first such vehicles in its inventory. The deal is worth up to $400 million.

    On Sept. 29 the SSM held a critical brainstorming meeting to set out a road map for the national helicopter program. Military and civilian officials, industry executives and academics gathered for the meeting to discuss ideas.

    First helicopter in 5 years

    Koksal Liman, head of SSM’s helicopter programs, said Oct. 13 that, “We aim to see our first helicopter in the air within the next five years.” He also said the SSM already had completed budget planning.

    Industry sources have said the type of light helicopter Turkey intends to build should weigh between 4,500 and 5,500 kilograms. The first Turkish national helicopter will be used for both military and civilian purposes, officials said. “Turkey is the world’s ninth largest helicopter market, so it is most natural if we went ahead to boost that sector of our local industry,” Liman said.

    via Turkey to produce its national light helicopter – Hurriyet Daily News.

  • Turkey to select next-generation helicopter

    Turkey to select next-generation helicopter

    Monday, October 26, 2009

    ÜMİT ENGİNSOY

    ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

    A15Turkey is preparing to select a new utility helicopter model, which it plans to produce and use for both military and civilian purposes over the next 20 years.

    Turkey’s procurement office is presently holding talks with a U.S. company and a European consortium. One of them will lead the work with local partners to jointly produce hundreds of utility platforms worth billions of dollars.

    The two firms are the U.S. Sikorsky Aircraft and the Italian-British AgustaWestland. Sikorsky is competing with its S-70 Black Hawk International and AgustaWestland is offering a platform currently being developed for the Turkish contract.

    The two companies presented their best offers in September, and Turkey’s Defense Industry Executive Committee is expected to choose a winner before the year-end, senior procurement officials told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

    The members of the Defense Industry Executive Committee, Turkey’s top decision-making body on procurement matters, include Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül and Chief Procurement Officer Murad Bayar.

    The first batch of utility helicopters to be jointly produced will comprise 109 platforms, worth more than $1 billion.

    Some 40 of those platforms will go for civilian purposes, and the rest will be military helicopters for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Gendarmerie.

    20 helicopters a year

    “After the first batch of 109 helicopters, we expect to order nearly 20 helicopters a year from this assembly line for many years,” one procurement official said.

    “So the model we choose will be Turkey’s standard utility helicopter model for the next 20 years,” said the official. Turkey also plans to export this jointly manufactured utility platform.

    Presently, the Turkish military is operating several different types of helicopters. The military has more than 100 S-70s, more than 100 older U.S.-made UH-1 Hueys and 19 French-designed AS-532 Cougars.

    Separately, the procurement office is holding government-to-government talks with the United States for the purchase of 10 CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, made by Boeing. In the long run, Turkey wants to design, develop and manufacture its own light utility helicopter.

    Hürriyet Daily News