TR F-16 Özgür | Hürkuş - Fighter Trainer Aircraft Projects

[Saithan]

Seems to me people don't really get the situation TurAF is in. TurAF is NATO's second largest air force and the third largest air force in the region. Some of its capabilities can only be matched by countries like France and Israel. But, unlike 10 or 20 years ago Turkey now ensures this numerical superiority with relatively outdated aircraft in the form of some 230 legacy F-16s, an important part of which are not used for combat duties. As far as i can remember, TurAF currently have 8(7 if you discount 113) combat squadrons made up of F-16s. That's it. It has one squadron specializing in SEAD duties, and two squadrons specializing in strike roles with more than usual LANTIRN share. This is our fighter aircraft inventory. TurAF was the first non-US NATO country to field a LANTIRN squadron in 90s that allowed to strike at night with precision in Yugoslavia. It was one of the first users of the Sniper pod, and the DB-110.

This technological edge TurAF had over its neighbours and adversaries is now lost in 2024. Now almost every neighbour that's worth talking about field more technologically advanced aircraft than TurAF, and in greater numbers than in the past. There is also the issue of training pilots and keeping up with the doctrinal and operational changes of the neighbouring air forces. While Kızılelma and Anka-3 are hopefully set to be great additions as part of OKU, they are not fighter jets, they can't replace the roles we give to our fighter jets. While it is good that we have hundreds of drones that can strike a moving vehicle outside of our borders, whenever a real target shows up, it's not the TB2 or Anka that is sent but an F-16 with 4 big PGMs under its wings. Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Yemen in the last 10 days I believe have showed everyone again that a fighter bomber is irreplaceable and gives the most capability for money spent.

Neither Özgür-II nor Kaan is coming soon enough and both require American acceptance to develop, produce and field and Kaan will not be delivered in meaningful numbers soon. There's issues to be talked about stopgap solutions, mainly about political back and forths and delivery times, but TurAF needs a new generation aircraft that is ready to be fielded without development as the world plunges to chaos. This is not a new topic, I wrote about a "B plan for the air force in case of issues and delays" in 2019. 5 years has passed, with no solution reached. Only thing that stands is that our aircraft are old and the replacements we are working on are still in early stages of development project scale wise.


There's no F-15 offer. Per my understanding reading the article, Ekşi mentions F-15 as another alternative instead of F-35s and the official interviewed basically says "sure, that can be discussed."

Good reminder of where we are.

But I'd like to add that as long as our allies get what they want from our "alliance" of sorts, I don't see any inclination that they are willing to fulfill their part of the deal.

As I see it they are not interested in Türkiye being able to do airmissions, so they will not give us any new jet.

We can somewhat do stuff with UAV/UCAV etc. and that is bare minimum what they will allow us to do. otherwise Canada would stop exporting engines to us. or other western engines. (would be a blessing if they stopped exporting engines to our UAV/UCAV).

We provide them with intel from Kürecik radar station, we stopped the refugees from invading EU, and there are likely a whole lot of other stuff worth mentioning, but if all of this is under the threat of sanctioning us further, I think it's important that we secure our country internally first before we face the whole shit they can throw at us.

I really think shutting down the Kürecik would be the right move, and have the intel datalink setup transfered to Incirlik.

It doesn't help that we get out of one noose, just to stick our head into another noose.

EDIT: btw would Koral be able to scramble Kürecik ? or enough Korals ?

 

[Zoth]

Neither Özgür-II nor Kaan is coming soon enough and both require American acceptance to develop, produce and field and Kaan will not be delivered in meaningful numbers soon. There's issues to be talked about stopgap solutions, mainly about political back and forths and delivery times, but TurAF needs a new generation aircraft that is ready to be fielded without development as the world plunges to chaos. This is not a new topic, I wrote about a "B plan for the air force in case of issues and delays" in 2019. 5 years has passed, with no solution reached. Only thing that stands is that our aircraft are old and the replacements we are working on are still in early stages of development project scale wise.

While i totally agree with your post, there is even also a bigger issue, even if today, we sign a deal with either USA or EU for F16/F15 or Eurofighter, those jets will start arriving the earliest in 2028, which dosn't solve the aging f16s problem.
The real question is, if Kaan is really planned to enter service around 2028, why do we want Eurofighters that will start arriving at the same time? I guess due to possibility of Kaan being delayed to 2030s?

This is all happening because the plan was to replace f4s with F35s then slowly replace F16s with Hurjet/Kaan, but thanks to our catastrophic foreign policy, we got kicked out of F35 program and end up losing both the revenue of F35 production and F35s at the same time.

 

[somegoodusername]

While i totally agree with your post, there is even also a bigger issue, even if today, we sign a deal with either USA or EU for F16/F15 or Eurofighter, those jets will start arriving the earliest in 2028, which dosn't solve the aging f16s problem.
The real question is, if Kaan is really planned to enter service around 2028, why do we want Eurofighters that will start arriving at the same time? I guess due to possibility of Kaan being delayed to 2030s?

This is all happening because the plan was to replace f4s with F35s then slowly replace F16s with Hurjet/Kaan, but thanks to our catastrophic foreign policy, we got kicked out of F35 program and end up losing both the revenue of F35 production and F35s at the same time.

Turkish Air Force is currently at its most technologically behind position in terms of aircraft inventory, in the history of our republic, after jet age.
We won't have a 5th-generation plane until 2033-34 at the earliest, which is 15 years behind the F-35's intended service entry date at 2019.
Pray that Turkey's borders remain the same until this problem is resolved. The last time we were this technologically behind, we lost a lot.

One reason the Ottoman Empire joined World War I was that Greece had achieved a qualitative advantage in the Aegean Sea with the cruiser Averof, which they bought in 1909. Ottoman admirals reported that they couldn't sail in the Aegean because they had no ship to counter the Greek Averof. The Ottoman government ordered two ships from the UK to address this problem, but the UK seized the ships to increase the dreadnought gap between themselves and the German Empire. With the Aegean turning into a Greek lake, when Germany offered two ships to resolve the qualitative disadvantage, the Ottomans decided to join the war on Germany's side.

Now, hundred years later, Greeks are getting F-35's and we have nothing to put against it. "Türkiye Yüzyılı". More likely to be "Century of Humiliation" for Turkey.

 

[Zoth]

Pray that Turkey's borders remain the same until this problem is resolved. The last time we were this technologically behind, we lost a lot

Although i agree that the Airforce of Turkey is at it's lowest due to some stupid decisions, i don't think Turkey has any real threat for it's borders. The only issue i see where we might end up accepting is Greece's 12nm claims in Aegean if they achieve very strong air dominance over us(which they will not), the situation is dire, but we still have the time to make the right maneuvers.

 

[Saithan]

There is no recovery for that might as well secure 90+ engine for hürjet and see how many we get delivered before embargoed.

Drowning EU in refugges could have but big problems there but someone chose to drown us in these problems

 

[Nutuk]

We can quickly make up when we receive our drones: Akinci, ANKA3, ANKA4, Kizilelma

With our drone force we have a strike power that our country has never witnessed (peak power in strike).

We have a weapons arsenal that we never ever had before

We will have an air defense network as never ever before

We have 19 commando brigades, 16 mechanised brigade which is an unprecedented fighting force

We have ballistic missiles like never before



I would not even bother about not getting F35's (which will be even severely restricted and open to US interference). We should put all efforts into Hurjet and Kaan, foreign aircraft will only restrict us

 

[TR_123456]

Although i agree that the Airforce of Turkey is at it's lowest due to some stupid decisions, i don't think Turkey has any real threat for it's borders. The only issue i see where we might end up accepting is Greece's 12nm claims in Aegean if they achieve very strong air dominance over us(which they will not), the situation is dire, but we still have the time to make the right maneuvers.

That will never happen,Greece is to close(territory) to have air dominance.
What airdefence does Greece have and what kind of missiles do we have?
Dont forget ''561 km''.

 

[Zoth]

That will never happen,Greece is to close(territory) to have air dominance.
What airdefence does Greece have and what kind of missiles do we have?
Dont forget ''561 km''.

Yeah, i was only speculating for the sake of speculation.

 

[Yasar_TR]

Havacılık ve Milli Savunma Ürünleri on Instagram: "🇹🇷ASELSAN Genel Müdürü Ahmet AKYOL: ▫️MURAD AESA Radar’ın F-16 ile uçuşları devam ediyor. KAAN , HÜRJET ve AKINCI ile de entegrasyon sağlandı. Yakında uçtuğunu da göreceğiz."

2,432 likes, 7 comments - havacilik.millisavunmaurunleri on October 4, 2024: "🇹🇷ASELSAN Genel Müdürü Ahmet AKYOL: ▫️MURAD AESA Radar’ın F-16 ile uçuşları devam ediyor. KAAN , HÜRJET ve AKINCI ile de entegrasyon sağlandı. Yakında uçtuğunu da göreceğiz.".

www.instagram.com

Nice bit of news from Aselsan’s General Manager about Murad.
ÖzgürF16 has been busy test flying the Murad aesa radar.
He also says that Murad has been integrated in to Hurjet, Akinci and KAAN, and that we should soon see the flight testing of these.

 

[I_Love_F16]

Havacılık ve Milli Savunma Ürünleri on Instagram: "🇹🇷ASELSAN Genel Müdürü Ahmet AKYOL: ▫️MURAD AESA Radar’ın F-16 ile uçuşları devam ediyor. KAAN , HÜRJET ve AKINCI ile de entegrasyon sağlandı. Yakında uçtuğunu da göreceğiz."

2,432 likes, 7 comments - havacilik.millisavunmaurunleri on October 4, 2024: "🇹🇷ASELSAN Genel Müdürü Ahmet AKYOL: ▫️MURAD AESA Radar’ın F-16 ile uçuşları devam ediyor. KAAN , HÜRJET ve AKINCI ile de entegrasyon sağlandı. Yakında uçtuğunu da göreceğiz.".

www.instagram.com

Nice bit of news from Aselsan’s General Manager about Murad.
ÖzgürF16 has been busy test flying the Murad aesa radar.
He also says that Murad has been integrated in to Hurjet, Akinci and KAAN, and that we should soon see the flight testing of these.

Good news. This will enable us to accelerate the testing phase of the radar.

 

[Shtr]

Actually he told that work on integrating it with the KAAN and HÜRJET aircraft is ongoing not established. However Akıncı Integration is greatly completed. Soon Akıncı will take off with Murad.

 

[Shtr]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1842216765624922390

 

[Huelague]

Although i agree that the Airforce of Turkey is at it's lowest due to some stupid decisions, i don't think Turkey has any real threat for it's borders. The only issue i see where we might end up accepting is Greece's 12nm claims in Aegean if they achieve very strong air dominance over us(which they will not), the situation is dire, but we still have the time to make the right maneuvers.

Don't be worry. We won't catch up with Greece, in terms of defence power and industry. We aim to catch up with our western part like France.
You talk about to giving up soil to Greece. WE talk about ' Mavi Vatan' and 'Misak-i Milli' and current implementation. Can you find out the difference?

 

[Saithan]

Nothing wrong with being aware of how much we've weakened our hand politically

 

[boredaf]

Is this the first (partial) sighting of the new Hürkuş prototype?

From the visit of UK's MoD to TAI :

İngiltere Savunma Bakanı'ndan TUSAŞ ziyareti

İngiltere Savunma Bakanı John Healey, Ankara'daki resmi görüşmeleri çerçevesinde Milli Savunma Bakanı Yaşar Güler ile TUSAŞ'ı ziyaret etti.

www.defenceturk.net

 

[MADDOG]

Is this the first (partial) sighting of the new Hürkuş prototype?

From the visit of UK's MoD to TAI :

İngiltere Savunma Bakanı'ndan TUSAŞ ziyareti

İngiltere Savunma Bakanı John Healey, Ankara'daki resmi görüşmeleri çerçevesinde Milli Savunma Bakanı Yaşar Güler ile TUSAŞ'ı ziyaret etti.

www.defenceturk.net

I believe this airframe is being used for tests, and isn't Hürkuş 2.

 

[boredaf]

I believe this airframe is being used for tests, and isn't Hürkuş 2.

Damn, I was excited we might see the whole thing soon. Do you happen to know anything about it?

 

[Saithan]

what about Hürjet ?

 

[Enderun]

The second prototype of Turkish Aerospace’s Hurjet advanced jet trainer has completed its first flight.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1859026191078093007

 

[Fuzuli NL]

The second prototype of Turkish Aerospace’s Hurjet advanced jet trainer has completed its first flight.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1859026191078093007

I tear up every time I look at the Hürjet. It's a very special aircraft.