(TEI General Manager Prof. Dr. Mahmut Faruk Akşit: "The engine of the National Combat Aircraft will be the 2nd largest engine in the world.)
Turkish is, at times, quite “confusing” when you translate it in to English!
“En Büyük” within context can mean ; Largest, Biggest, Most Powerful.
The wording used here is, in essence, quite wrong. Because there are many turbofans used in civil airliners that develop at least 3.5 times more thrust and much larger than the TF35K is going to be in dimensions. It should have been largest jet fighter engine built in the west.
Unless TEI decided to veer off from the given 35000lbf wet thrust engine it was planning to produce for KAAN, that thrust level is not the largest thrust level there is for a fighter jet engine.
As a quick example of some engines built and demonstrated:
GE-XA100 and P&W-XA101 develop 45000lbf wet thrust.
GE-F136 and P&W-F135 develop 43000lbf wet thrust
AL51F develops 37500lbf wet thrust
P&W-F119 develops 35000lbf wet thrust
WS15 develops 39700lbf wet thrust.
Also since the engine has to fit in to an engine compartment that houses an F110 engine (approximate diameter of 120cm) , it can’t be the largest diameter he is talking about, as all above engines (with the exception of AL51F and WS15, which have smaller diameters) are built to fit in to an engine housing that will accommodate an engine with an approximate diameter of 120cm.
If we take it that he is talking about the largest “western” engine in thrust and in actual use, then after the F135, it sits in second place with the F119. Of course, by the time TF35K is flying in KAAN, we may have had NGAD flying with XA100.
To me this is a politically motivated statement made in haste for the masses.