It looks like
is Göksungur still a thing or is it just another name for Anka-3?
Actually, relations were Baykar and L3Harris was really close before the Canadian embargo. AFAIK the wescam flirs were assembled in Turkey by Baykar.
By the way, was the TB3 given to Baykar through a tender? Because Tusaş has more advanced technology and know-how. It is also a state organization, a significant part of the money remains in the state.
i think TB-3 project was started by Baykar itself, as a "what could we do?"
If our state or private defence companies were to wait for tenders before they started research and development of new platforms, we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere.
Is it the same thing? We're not talking about classic drones. If such a need arose after the F35, or an idea emerged, all the companies involved in this business and the SSB would sit down and talk. In Mius, it is called TCG Anadolu, there is a lack of planning and a fait accompli. Classic Turkish business...
Why doesn't Tusaş make an drones like the tb2, because there is no need, it already exists. It can even be done for competition, but it is a matter of budget, needs and priorities. But the TCG Anadolu and the ship-launched iha project is a new project in the world, so I said that the parties should sit down and draw a plan and a framework.
It is good in the sense that those engineers can try to do their best instead of dealing with unrealistic and generally purposeless requirements from the army. Another thing is armies tend to be conservative in many areas, and their leaders are often elderly (elderly mean even more stubborn) commanders. However, young engineers are often quite progressive (not in political means) minded people. We can even see the difference between Force-to-Force, where Ground Forces choose WW2-era tanks over modern ones just because they have heavy in their name, while Navy even considers unmanned submarines. There was a US general who fought against his Force to install drone weapons.
In fact, it is a very good thing for companies to initiate projects on their own initiative without the government's bid. Because when you sign a contract, TAF can get very involved in what you do and how you do it. While this is sometimes a good thing, no one wants to experience a Anka disaster again. The Anka project started in TAI at the beginning of 2005. And due to Hvkk's constantly putting forward different needs, it only came out of the hangar in 2010. And only in 2013 he was able to sign a serial production contract. After exactly 8 years from the beginning of the project, it was only able to enter the inventory.
Hürkuş is another example of this.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Over the last 3 years, I've witnessed many people from very different parts of the political spectrum criticizing the military for its way of handling and communicating it needs with the industry. Both private and state companies are put in difficult positions due to this unpredictable behavior.
The current political climate also impacts this. Not only the political divisions, but also the fact that the military has been somewhat cut off from having influence of their own. Military staff are refraining from being proactive in many ways including giving feedback to the defence industry because they know that it can land them in trouble. Surprisingly there is still a lot of distrust between the military and the government. For instance, the military was not allowed to help residents effected by the forest fires last year. Also Erdoğan hasn't attended a military parade in around 7 years, nor allowed them to parade with combat vehicles.
