What is the scope of the retrofit?We have completed the retrofit of the 8th A400M, also known as "Koca Yusuf," belonging to the Steel Eagles of our skies, and delivered it to the service of the Turkish Air Force.
May it be beneficial to our glorious army and nation!
Tried looking up but came up empty handed. What does this retrofit entail?
Defence Turk piece regarding the retrofit of the 2nd plane mentions after the 2nd plane, 7 more would be retrofitted; but not 10, the total number we have. Did the 10th plane leave Spain with newer "batch", not needing a retrofit?
Asfat currently has a 2 hangar setup that can accommodate 2 A400s at the same time. Wonder if any foreign customers are on the horizon.
edit. As per the Defence Turkey piecei it's a 2 hangar setup but one of the hangars is for C-heck while the other is for retrofitting.
"The new A400M Maintenance-Repair-Repair (Retrophit) Hangar No. 6 has two chambers, and the A400M C-Check Overhol/FASBAT operation will be performed in one eye of the hangar and the Retrofit operation will be performed in the other."
"Hangar No.6, which A330 MRTT Aircraft with its 60m wingspan and can enter."
A400M Retrofit Hangarı Bugün Resmen Hizmete Giriyor!
Dünyada çok az sayıda ülkenin gerçekleştirebildiği özel bakımları da yapabilen Kayseri, Erkilet’deki 12’nci Hava Ulaştırma Ana Üs Komutanlığı yerleşkesi içinde yer alan 2’nci Hava Bakım Fabrika Müdürlüğü (HBFM) bağlısı Uçak Fabrika Seviyesi Bakım ve Tadilat (FASBAT) Müdürlüğü, inşası tamamlanan...www.defenceturkey.com
As long as they are used only for long-range engagements, i don't see a problem to further modernize them.
They were never modernized for BVR, they don't even carry AIM-120. Another big modernization would require another full replacing of cabling, modernizing the cockpit and so much more for a squadron worth of aircraft that is already outdated by 40 years, to be replaced in 5 years after they are delivered. Which to be honest after reading it, remembering F-5 2000, Şimşek and Işık, does make sense from HvKK's point of view. They love modernizing old stuff to throw the towel 5 years later.
And maybe they are just talking about small stuff like RWR, IFF and Datalink?
, i am thinking like you. Just buy that EF...
There is no other connection to be made there. Air force planned to replace F-4s beginning from 2018 with F-35s, they planned all this, retired squadrons, modernized Malatya AFB for this exact reason beginning from early 2010s. In the original plan, last F-4 would have been retired years ago. Remaining 20 something F-4s being modernized is only possible because of the failure to buy new jets.
F-4 is a fuel guzzling turbojet aircraft with mediocre combat radius and now obsolete avionics. We paid more than 600 million dollars to modernize 50 F-4Es to 2020 back in 1999. With added inflation and new stuff costing more, we can easily expect 20 aircraft to come at a billion USD easily. You can't create a JH-7 out of F-4E and make the costs make sense for 20 aircraft to use it as a bomb truck, F-4 2020 is the last stop of that route already. In 2025, F-4 is not surviving more than a single sortie when Rafales are being swatted out of sky at ranges of up to 150 kilometers. Is using F-4s to send TRLG-300 ALBMs is really what this air force needs?
Here's hoping they discussed converting F-4s to drones to be used in Göktuğ missile tests as target aircraft.
I'm an amateur, but I bet it doesn't take an expert to see this is not "hating". Hating would be to argue to modernize 60 year old airframes to fight another day, if I hated the aircraft, the pilots, maintenance crews, planners and the armed forces overall.
We don't know the details on Gezgin, but doubt we can use an F-4 to launch a Bora, centerline station is like 2000kg tops, unless you go for some extensive modifications to the 60 year old airframe. SOM also falls to the same category as the Rafales last month. With 250km range, you're too close to the enemy in a huge F-4 with no thermal dampening and RCS at least 2-3 times F-16.
Terminator modernization made these aircraft to be bomb slingers. They were never rated for AIM-120. F-4 squadrons haven't trained for BVR for over 2 decades.
It isn't, it's a multi role strike fighter, it's in the name, Joint Strike Fighter. Exactly the role we use F-4s for, actually.
My suggestion is to not prolong the suffering of the last remaining single F-4 squadron because F-4 is obsolete and there are much better places we can spend that billion dollars and years of development on, like buying 2 more Siper batteries.
F-35 being a marvel of engineering and the best there in multiple aspects has no bearing on whether it's a strike fighter or not. It's a tad small deep strike fighter with capability to carry 2 MK-84s internally, unlike any air superiority fighters. For smaller air forces, ours included it could very well be the best thing in the skies as well, but not for larger powers like US and China.
