TR Air-Force TF-X KAAN Fighter Jet

[Sanchez]

Kotil was at least “closer” to being a man of his word

Not at all, his timelines moved like lines in the sand all the time.

There is a delay, there will be many more delays. We should accept that there will be delays and also demand explanation for the delays. It is billions of our taxpayer money and the most important and hardest undertaking of this country since 1922.

 

[Fairon]

Postponing previously given first flight dates without explanation is totally unprofessional.

Remember Mahmut Aksit, when TF6000 was delayed by 6 months he came clean and stated that a simple part that was available normally, was made unavailable. So they had to produce it in house, causing the delay.

Mr Demiroglu initially had given a First flight date of last quarter of 2025. Then he postponed it to beginning of April 2026, without any reasons. That was 3 months to 6 months delay at best and at worst over the previously given date. Now another couple of months delay! No explanation again. This is becoming the norm and a joke!

In production delays may occur. In development work they may be even more frequent. But there is always an explainable reason. For a program like KAAN, that is being followed by everyone in close scrutiny, to just postpone is wrong.

We have a saying in Turkish ; (Gelen gldeni arattırır) . I guess the closest translation is “the better the devil you know”.
Kotil was at least “closer” to being a man of his word.

Sadly, Mahmut Aksit is alone in this regard.

I don't remember any other company as open as TEI regarding the problems during the processes. We only pick something might going wrong when there is concurrent delays or some abnormality during the development progress.(And usually had to pick up from parts of the statements or the published tests videos for the tests that should've been done years ago)

 

[Yasar_TR]

Not at all, his timelines moved like lines in the sand all the time.

There is a delay, there will be many more delays. We should accept that there will be delays and also demand explanation for the delays. It is billions of our taxpayer money and the most important and hardest undertaking of this country since 1922.

That is why I said “closer”.
During Kotil’s tenure there were delays too. But he did give reasons. His deadlines were too ambitious and aggressive. But during his time:

• KAAN (TF-X): Maiden flight on February 21, 2024.
• Hürjet: First flight on April 25, 2023.
• Anka-3 UCAV: First flight on December 28, 2023.
• T929 Atak 2: First flight on April 28, 2023.

were accomplished . During he was in charge, we were subject to more stringent and widespread hidden embargoes too.