Navy wants LRMPA. The question is which route they are going to take. A couple years ago there were talks about a NATO MPA project which Türkiye signed on as a partner but I think that is dead in the water with Germany buying P-8s and France seemlingly going its own way(Either A320neo based or Falcon 10X).
I think was supposed to be based on the A320 family.
As we know they are only three or four options imo on the market that would make one of which will never be sold(P-8) to us and the other only being used by one other country (P-1). Leaving us with only two viable options.
1. We go the Pakistan route ala Sea Sultan
2. Navy buys second hand aircrafts (A320/737) from THY and has Aselsan and TAI turn them into MPA for them. With this option I don't know if we would need approval from the manufacturer in the first place.
Nevertheless we need LRMPA to be able to cover our EEZ efficiently.
BTW THY just couple days ago signed up to buy 345 Airbus aircrafts. Things like these need to be used by the government to our advantage.
I apologize to the forum, but if the package of 250 planes does not include astronomical increases in the business share of Turkish aviation companies, and even more so, the location of one of the final assembly production facilities in TR, then it is a big idiocy.
We are building an airplane factory in Kayseri. We are trying to resurrect TOMTAŞ from its ashes. This was an opportunity.
Regarding Embraer: It could have been a much more strategic investment to acquire the under-license production rights of Lineage 1000, which production line was closed in 2020, and move it to the newly establishing factory in Kayseri with the support of the Foundation companies.
In the long-range MPA project, Pakistan's Sea Sultan project involves the procurement and conversion of second-hand Lineage 1000s. In other words, by starting from the basis of this project and starting with the integration of our ready-made systems in this field, especially Aselsan and Havelsan, we can gradually gain a factory that can develop naval aircraft of a much more strategic nature. Tusaş as the structural and test infrastructure, and Aselsan as the avionics and system integration can provide the production line very quickly.
One way or another, we have to expand towards civil/military dual-use mid-fuselage aircraft to prevent our air industry from becoming bogged down at some point. It is very important to produce high quality state-of-the-art systems, but we must also utilize of this infrastructure to generate huge revenues.