Despite the health crisis which is hard hitting industrialists around the world, the Turkish next-generation fighter program seems to be continuing its development normally. Its designer, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has thus recently signed an agreement with the firm HAVELSAN based in Ankara.
As a public enterprise, HAVELSAN is specializes in the development of software and computer systems and works mainly in the IT and defense sectors. As part of the development of the TF-X, the full-scale model of which was unveiled at the Paris Air Show in 2019, HAVELSAN will have to develop training environments (ground simulators and embedded simulation aboard fighters), engineering solutions, logistics support software or even complete cyber security systems.
If the President of Turkish Defense Industries wants to be reassuring about the course of the program, particularly with regard to the Covid-19 epidemic, there is currently every reason to believe that the TF-X program will experience very serious delays in the years to come. Indeed, even if the Turkish aeronautical industry has developed considerably in recent years, it is still not capable of developing a modern combat aircraft on its own. This does not prevent Ankara from seeing the TF-X program as a springboard allowing it to join this highly prized club which today only includes the USA, Russia, France and China. To a lesser extent, Japan and the UK also possess the theoretical skills for such an undertaking.
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