Turkey’s fighter jet – did Turkey bit off more than it can chew?

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Turkish ambitions to develop and build the first ever made-in-Turkey fighter aircraft and at the same time buy a new generation, multinational combat jet may go beyond Turkey’s financing capacity, industry sources and experts say.

Turkey could face a $50 billion bill in the next few decades if it decides to go ahead with its maturing plans to build an indigenous fighter jet and order scores of the U.S.-led, multinational F-35 joint strike fighters in a parallel move.

“The [local] fighter program has not yet won the final green light from the government, but if it does, Turkish budget planners will have to sit down and find ways to finance both this ambition and the JSF program,” said one senior western aerospace official.

Procurement officials earlier said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would make the final decision on whether Turkey should skip to a next level in its pre-conceptual design work for the Turkish fighter, a program dubbed the TF-X. According to Defense News, Turkey’s ultimate decision-maker on procurement, the Defense Industry Executive Committee, chaired by Erdogan, is expected to make a decision this year.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

Defense industry officials estimate that building eight prototypes, produced under the TF-X would cost Ankara over $10 billion. “Any figure in the range of $11-13 billion would be realistic,” an aviation official said. His guess for the final Turkish order, if the entire program succeeds is nearly 200 aircraft. “We target $100 million per aircraft,” he said. “I think 200 is a realistic figure given our aging fleet of aircraft that will phase out in the decades ahead.”

That means Turkey will have to spend $31-$33 billion for the Turkish fighter it hopes to design, develop and manufacture. An over-optimistic calculation according to analysts.

Turkey has been in talks with Sweden’s Saab for pre-conceptual design work for the country’s first national fighter jet. Saab makes the JAS 39 Gripen, a lightweight single-engine multirole fighter. It was designed to replace the Saab 35 Draken and 37 Viggen in the Swedish Air Force. The Gripen is powered by the Volvo-Flygmotor RM12 engine, a derivative of the General Electric F404, and has a top speed of Mach 2.

Turkey hopes that under the TF-X program, it can fly the Turkish fighter by 2023, the centennial of the republic.