In a statement FED, an Ukrainian company, said, it has entered into an agreement with Turkey to supply components for Ankara’s helicopters and planes worth tens of millions of dollars. This is the third such contract it signed with its Turkish partners this year during IDEF-2021.
The FED has also signed a contract for designing and manufacturing new components for Turkey’s attack helicopter ATAK-II.
“Development and supply for one year. These are units of the helicopter flight control system and hydraulic systems,” said FED’s Chairman, Viktor Popov while adding, during the current year the company has already signed three contracts with Turkish partners.
“Two contracts are helicopter-themed. In addition, we participate in the TF-X (Turkish Fighter Experimental) program. It is a fifth-generation aircraft, a fighter. It is also a huge job, very short deadlines. It is important that the planned development and This means that we are fully loading our engineers, technologists, and production” said Popov.
“In total, these contracts are more than $ 20 million”.
Expressing satisfaction on the number of contracts signed during IDEF-2021, he said enterprises of the Ukrainian aviation industry have seen success in the IDEF-2021.
“Our main players have signed good contracts,” said Victor Popov.
Turkey’s TF-X fighter plane to have Russian engine?
Ankara is likely to receive full technological support from Russia to complete the development and production of its fifth-generation TF-X fighter with Moscow potentially helping to develop and equip it with an engine as well. This was broadly hinted by Sergey Chemezov, Rostek’s CEO to Russian journalists. He also mentioned that Russia’s Su-57 and Su-75 are new opportunities for cooperation for Ankara.
“We are always open to dialogue with our partners. If Turkey shows interest, we are ready to cooperate in this direction. We know that Turkey intends to implement a project to produce its fifth-generation TF-X fighter,” said Chemezov.
“Having aviation systems and experience in their development and production, we can consider the possibility of supporting the creation of a new Turkish fighter jet”.
Since Russia has significantly more experience in developing fifth-generation stealth fighters compared to Turkey, it is possible that at one point Moscow could be open to sharing this experience with Ankara, opined Turkish military experts.
“Obviously, Turkey will not allow Russian developers to create a fighter jet for the Turkish Air Force, but without an engine, such a fighter simply cannot be built and here Russia is the main ally of the Turkish side,” said a Turkish military expert to Russian media Aviapro.
Although this has not been confirmed on official channels between the two countries, a few months ago, Turkey had requested Russia to join its TF-X project. Similarly, while Turkey has requested to join Russia’s S-500 air defense project, Moscow has yet to provide any consent.
Without an engine, Turkey’s fifth generation TF-X project will not take off. Despite the lack of any definitive publicly available agreement on equipping its fighter with an engine, Ankara continues to work on future armaments and has begun developing a new missile called “Vulture” (Akbaba in Turkish) that targets the enemy’s radar installations.
This anti-radiation missile will replace the American AGM-88 HARM. According to unconfirmed sources, the missile will have a distinctive design, AESA radar, passive RF head.
