Debut F-35 order on the way, disputes remain in Turkey

Turkey plans to buy the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II, a stealth multirole fighter jet, to meet most future needs for its Air Force’s next-generation fighter planes. It has voiced willingness to buy around 100 F-35s over the next 15 years, but as the program’s limited production stage begins, it so far has not formally committed to the program. To do so, it needs to submit a purchase order for a first batch of six aircraft before the end of the year.

“We will have talks [with the Americans] in the months ahead in an effort to resolve some matters. If we manage to reach an agreement, we expect to order the first six aircraft this year,” Murad Bayar, chief of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, or SSM, the government’s defense procurement agency, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News. “We expect to reach a deal.”

The F-35, whose production is led by the U.S.’s Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense company, will be built by a consortium of nine countries, including Turkey. Other members of the consortium are Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Norway and Denmark.

A few years ago, when Turkey’s purchase of around 100 jets was expected to cost around $10 billion or $11 billion, Turkish companies grabbed project work around $5 billion, meeting nearly the half of the expense. But the unit price has gone up considerably over the past two years, exceeding $13 billion.

Now Turkish companies seek to raise their share to more than $6 billion to stay near the planned 50 percent figure. In addition, the United States remains reluctant to share millions of lines of source codes that make the plane’s flight possible. Turkey, however, wants access to part of these source codes related to operational needs.

Placing an order for the first six aircraft before the end of this year mostly is related to early deliveries, around 2014 and 2015, and a failure to do so would not mean the end of the world. “If we don’t place the first purchase order by yearend, that would not necessarily mean that we have failed to agree, it may mean that we at this point may not have the finances,” Bayar said. “Anyway, we hope that none of this happens.”

The F-35 mainly has three versions.

The F-35A is the conventional takeoff and landing variant intended for the U.S. Air Force and other air forces. The F-35B is the short takeoff and vertical landing variant of the aircraft, and is meant for the U.S. Marines. The F-35C carrier variant features larger wings with foldable wingtip sections, and is meant for the U.S. Navy. A fourth variant, the F-35I, is an export version for Israel.

Second aircraft

Separately, Turkey has a plan to develop a second fighter aircraft in the 2020s. Turkish Aerospace Industries, or TAI, has about 18 months to develop the specifications for this second fighter jet, which should replace most of the Vietnam War-era F-4E Phantoms.

The European consortium Eurofighter repeatedly has asked Turkey to do the job together, but Ankara prefers to develop the fighter from scratch, probably with another country. The Eurofighter consortium already builds the Typhoon. Other options for Turkey include South Korea or Brazil.


/Hurriyet Daily News/