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| The Grand Turk |
| As God is my witness, I thought TurkeyÂ’s could fly. |
| 2011-10-06 |
| But Turkey’s keep crashing. No Mr. Carlson, not the birds ; Turkey’s drones. In an attempt to bolster its leadership role in the Arab world, Turkey has recently done almost everything it could to alienate Israel, to the extent that neither currently has an ambassador in the other’s country. Turkey also decided to cut off all government-based business deals with Israel – ending a formerly substantial trade in military equipment, including, according to Defense News, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); according to the publication, Turkey purchased 10 Heron UAVs from Israel Aircraft Industries in 2010. No more such purchases are likely. But as relations continued to worsen with Israel – and as Turkey decided that the time was ripe for it to take a regional leadership role – Ankara has decided to produce as many of its own weapons as possible, including UAVs. So Turkey, according to Defense News, made a strategic decision to ground its Israeli UAVs and produce its own version of the pilotless patrol planes. And following the government’s directive, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) promptly designed and produced a home-grown Turkish UAV – the Anka, which the government hoped would fulfill Turkey’s needs for UAVs; perhaps Ankara would even be able to develop an industry around the craft. Only one problem, though: So far, every prototype Anka that TAI has produced has crashed. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 Turkey is much more sophisticated than Iran. They do produce their own munitions and license produce sophisticated weapons like the F-16. Still Turkey likes to license produce near copies of other country's weapons and passes them off as their own. Bayraktar UAV |
| Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165 2011-10-06 20:57 |
| #5 This smells just like Iran's latest "super fighter", that is a cut and paste job starting with an F-5 and adding in a V-tail and canards, with wider wings to carry more fuel. It has only ever been shown in a static display, because word is every time someone tries taxiing it on a runway, the nose gear collapses. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2011-10-06 16:23 |
| #4 You can see the Anka lineage in the General Atomics GNAT which Turkey operates. What the Turks have tried to do is scale the GNAT tech up to the MQ-1C Warrior's size using Turkish sensors and w/o the satellite dish in the nose. Explains that ridiculous nose landing gear as they tried to adhere to the Warrior's dimensions and still keep a similar center of gravity. |
| Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165 2011-10-06 13:13 |
| #3 I bet the Turks still tried to import some of the more complicated parts from Israel, Europe or the US. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-10-06 12:39 |
| #2 It is my understanding that Turkey did not choose to ground its Israeli UAVs, but rather that they needed Israeli crews to fly them, and Israeli crews to keep them flyable. It may not be only Turkish engineering which is failing there. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-10-06 12:23 |
| #1 Insallah engineering at its finest. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2011-10-06 12:00 |