Opinions on MMU & Hürjet Fighter/Trainer Projects

[Turcici Imperium]

This is a thread for people to speculate with their own personal opinions about MMU (known as TF-X i guess) and Hürjet. You can continue playing betting games here, like you can bet over each other about which year these projects will be realized, or even if they will ever be realized or not.

Informative topic (here : https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/tf-x-turkish-fighter-trainer-aircraft-projects.256669 ) will not be polluted with opinions that don't have any value to be taken as an information about the development of these projects. That thread will only be used to share updates and developments regarding those projects.

@WebMaster I have been told as 'sure go ahead' when i brought this idea before, but it just won't work like that, there is a need for enforcement. I would simply request for one pakistani moderator to be allocated to the turkish defence forum or one turkish member to be hired in moderation to keep this section in order.

@SgtGungHo , @RadarGudumluMuhimmat , @Titanium100 , @Deino please continue your discussions based on opinions or speculations regarding MMU and Hürjet in here, and post updates and other informative news about those projects in this thread.

 

[Deino]

Thanks for your invitation to a new thread and even if I have only slim hopes that in this thread a rationale discussion can be made, let's have a try ... maybe you can help to be successful.

The problem IMO is therefore not that one wants to wish Turkey bad luck or anything bad, but that most international, reasonable and well respected analysts have too many open questions and that so far too few of them are answered.
In return any such critical question, remark or doubt is always alone rated an insult and replied in a most aggressive way.
IMO a forum is exactly the place to exchange opinions, even contradicting ones, to ask open questions and to get answers and explanations. If one expects only expects "whao huu ... the best fighter yet to come!" and nothing more, shall leave a discussion.

But to your question:

IMO, this is a most impressive fighter, a great design and on paper the fighter looks very promising.
On the other side I have several grave concerns in regard to the overall timeline, budget and especially its engines. This is based on the one side on the "unique social and political situation" in Turkey, which I rate unsecured and even more based on the fact that besides what Turkish sources claim the officially agreed use of F110 engines were so far not announced by either the USA or GE.

This is in strict contrast to any other foreign use of GE engines, be that in India, South Korea and so on and given the latest - to put it mildly - political dispute between the USA and Turkey and the lack of any official US confirmation I am doubtful.

Once again and I'm sure this note alone is r but anyway: Usually even if you assemble or manufacture a US engine you cannot simply use it in another product; PERIOD.

The USA are very strict on this and so far - even more

So in summary: I would be very much more optimistic if anyone could share not a YouTube-video claiming "it is so" but a credible source telling something about the terms of conditions for GE F110 that Turkey signed. Any bashing down of questions is neither constructive nor helpful.

Claims "we could even copy it and GE won't even care since we are the 5th largest ... whatever!" is not a proof for the agreement to use a TEI built F110. Only the US government - not even GE and surely never TEI - decides on the use of US high end engines. Why alone noting this fact is rated an insult by some is beyond my understanding.

Again, such an agreement is maybe done, but why then does no US source and most of all GE mention this, which is most unusual since GE usually mentioned any use of their engines by a foreign partner. Here in contrast GE "has been awefully quiet" as @SgtGungHo pointed out.

As such: without any authorisation from the US government, there is NO F110 available for the TFX unless Turkey ignores the US intellectual properties which in return even worse consequences.

Therefore in short: My wish for this discussion here would be an honest, open minded and civilised discussion on this most impressive project, but without these points of concerns solved (and these are not my concerns alone) all such claims the TFX prototype 01 will be being ready in 2022 and will fly in 2023 is far from assured regardless what some constantly claim.

Best and take care,
Deino



@dr.knowhow and @SgtGungHo

 

[dr.knowhow]

Thanks for your invitation to a new thread and even if I have only slim hopes that in this thread a rationale discussion can be made, let's have a try ... maybe you can help to be successful.

The problem IMO is therefore not that one wants to wish Turkey bad luck or anything bad, but that most international, reasonable and well respected analysts have too many open questions and that so far too few of them are answered.
In return any such critical question, remark or doubt is always alone rated an insult and replied in a most aggressive way.
IMO a forum is exactly the place to exchange opinions, even contradicting ones, to ask open questions and to get answers and explanations. If one expects only expects "whao huu ... the best fighter yet to come!" and nothing more, shall leave a discussion.

But to your question:

IMO, this is a most impressive fighter, a great design and on paper the fighter looks very promising.
On the other side I have several grave concerns in regard to the overall timeline, budget and especially its engines. This is based on the one side on the "unique social and political situation" in Turkey, which I rate unsecured and even more based on the fact that besides what Turkish sources claim the officially agreed use of F110 engines were so far not announced by either the USA or GE.

This is in strict contrast to any other foreign use of GE engines, be that in India, South Korea and so on and given the latest - to put it mildly - political dispute between the USA and Turkey and the lack of any official US confirmation I am doubtful.

Once again and I'm sure this note alone is r but anyway: Usually even if you assemble or manufacture a US engine you cannot simply use it in another product; PERIOD.

The USA are very strict on this and so far - even more

So in summary: I would be very much more optimistic if anyone could share not a YouTube-video claiming "it is so" but a credible source telling something about the terms of conditions for GE F110 that Turkey signed. Any bashing down of questions is neither constructive nor helpful.

Claims "we could even copy it and GE won't even care since we are the 5th largest ... whatever!" is not a proof for the agreement to use a TEI built F110. Only the US government - not even GE and surely never TEI - decides on the use of US high end engines. Why alone noting this fact is rated an insult by some is beyond my understanding.

Again, such an agreement is maybe done, but why then does no US source and most of all GE mention this, which is most unusual since GE usually mentioned any use of their engines by a foreign partner. Here in contrast GE "has been awefully quiet" as @SgtGungHo pointed out.

As such: without any authorisation from the US government, there is NO F110 available for the TFX unless Turkey ignores the US intellectual properties which in return even worse consequences.

Therefore in short: My wish for this discussion here would be an honest, open minded and civilised discussion on this most impressive project, but without these points of concerns solved (and these are not my concerns alone) all such claims the TFX prototype 01 will be being ready in 2022 and will fly in 2023 is far from assured regardless what some constantly claim.

Best and take care,
Deino



@dr.knowhow and @SgtGungHo

Ok, let's keep this as simple as it can be. Maybe we could list some of those credible sources so that everyone could agree?

What first comes in to my mind would be GE Aviation Press Release, DSCA announcement, congress approval. There might be other sources of equivalent credibility but I can't think of such as of now.

Next up would be well known news outlets like Janes, Flightglobal, Aviation Week, etc. But I would only count these new outlets to be assured when they cite US officials as their source of information. I've seen quite some cases where these - what I would call - "trutsted" outlets were wrong about their informations and mostly on matters outside US and Western Europe.

 

[Turcici Imperium]

@Deino the issue isn't that i agree or i disagree with your or others opinions or not. The issue was that, people were throwing their opinions and then start fighting over each others opinions and that was causing development information to be buried in between that nonsense. Chinese forum has a formula for that, there is an informative thread where people strickly post development news, and there is an opinion thread.

This is an opinion thread, and that one is an information thread. Lets people fight each other all they want here, as long as other thread would be kept clean. This thread could be pinned too if moderation wants.

I would also request informative thread's title to be changed into "Development news about MMU/Hürjet [STRICKLY]", if it makes sense.

 

[Kamil_baku]

Turkish sources claim the officially agreed use of F110 engines were so far not announced by either the USA or GE.

This is in strict contrast to any other foreign use of GE engines, be that in India, South Korea and so on and given the latest - to put it mildly - political dispute between the USA and Turkey and the lack of any official US confirmation I am doubtful.

Once again and I'm sure this note alone is r but anyway: Usually even if you assemble or manufacture a US engine you cannot simply use it in another product; PERIOD.

i dont know you write it because of the lack of Information or knowledge about the ProJet.. Maybe thats why you are not able to make a good conversation?
you might not know things, its ok, but if you end up lying with your limited knowledge, which is not hard to get, i dont know if it worth to talk to you to be honest..
f110 engines in purchased and already delivered to Turkey to be used on prototype jets, until the TFX tests finish, Turkey try to make the engine ready for mass production, which is 2029.
so will you explain, why Turkey need to worry if it has the engines already? they will start the production in this September with F110 engine you mentioned and wrote Period at the end.. )
on the other hand, Turkey also want to make 4.5 TFX soon, which if USA allow Turkey to use f110 for international sales. as you see, its not important. Turkey is able to test it still with f110 engine and develop further until it finds another engine or develop its own..

 

[Deino]

i dont know you write it because of the lack of Information or knowledge about the ProJet.. Maybe thats why you are not able to make a good conversation?
you might not know things, its ok, but if you end up lying with your limited knowledge, which is not hard to get, i dont know if it worth to talk to you to be honest..
f110 engines in purchased and already delivered to Turkey to be used on prototype jets, until the TFX tests finish, Turkey try to make the engine ready for mass production, which is 2029.
so will you explain, why Turkey need to worry if it has the engines already? they will start the production in this September with F110 engine you mentioned and wrote Period at the end.. )
on the other hand, Turkey also want to make 4.5 TFX soon, which if USA allow Turkey to use f110 for international sales. as you see, its not important. Turkey is able to test it still with f110 engine and develop further until it finds another engine or develop its own..

I think you are once again in some sort of bite-back reflex; please read again:

I know there are F110 engines in Turkey, but the point is, the USA are very strict in the terms of usage for such systems and you need to get US approval to divert these engines from F-16 use to the TFX. I don't say this cannot be done and eventually TAI signed a formal contract for this, but the surprising part is that GE is commonly very much open to announce such contracts and here we have nothing.

I don't understand why this again is rated an insult?

 

[Kamil_baku]

I think you are once again in some sort of bite-back reflex; please read again:

I know there are F110 engines in Turkey, but the point is, the USA are very strict in the terms of usage for such systems and you need to get US approval to divert these engines from F-16 use to the TFX. I don't say this cannot be done and eventually TAI signed a formal contract for this, but the surprising part is that GE is commonly very much open to announce such contracts and here we have nothing.

I don't understand why this again is rated an insult?

as you mentioned, all of those happened officially and US approved it. if not, same as S400, Turkey will go and choose Russian engines for test, Which might end up worse for US.

 

[jupiter2007]

It depends on domestically developed and foreign parts in these projects. It’s not easy to change engine. It’s not like removing duracell and adding energizer. Adding different engine may require frame modifications and engine testing.

 

[Deino]

as you mentioned, all of those happened officially and US approved it. if not, same as S400, Turkey will go and choose Russian engines for test, Which might end up worse for US.

Again and please don't get me wrong again ... if you say this "happened officially and US approved it" is exactly the question since usually at least GE officially announces such contracts and so far we heard nothing. And second to your " if not, same as S400, Turkey will go and choose Russian engines for test, Which might end up worse for US." here I can only contradict: Yes, then they might chose a Russian engine, but this will definitely delay the program even more since you cannot simply take a design that is as yet tailored to the F110 and replace the engine especially with a Russian one. As such if this might end worse for the US, I don't think so ... in the end it will be only worse for Turkey since the TFX/MMU will fail in worst case or surely delayed.

 

[dr.knowhow]

I recently noticed 2 things that are weird considering TF-X development timeline.


1.) First is that of TF-X prototype manufacturing. From Turkish sources I read that 5 prototypes in total are to be manufactured in EMD phase. Of these, 2 are to be powered by F110 (hence the 5 F110 engines Turkey allegedly "already ordered and have been delivered/under deliveries") and the rest of those 3 to be powered by Turkish turbofan engine.

The problem is, the Turks are planning to fly the engine for the first time in 2028. TF-X mass production is planned to be 2029. That means, until just 1 year before mass production, those 3 prototypes with Turkish engines are out there with no engine to fly with. In other words, the Turks should carry out their EMD process with just 2 prototypes which is ridiculous.


2.) Secondly, I've got to remember, that during the first bid for the development of the Turkish engine, where two parties, TEI and TAEC consortium participated, TEI have claimed that they could develop an indigenous engine given 14 years time. IIRC this was during 2019 or something like that. TAEC was chosen in that bid but ultimately the whole bid fell through because RR were done with the Turkish demands for IP rights.

Soon enough TR Motor emerged with TAI's share in it. Considering this and the fact that TEI, a TAI subsidiary, is the only company in Turkey that has sizeable gas turbine engine expertise and know-how, it is reasonable to think that the engineers of TR Motor would probably be TEI engineers.

So when this is the case, how come does TR Motor all the sudden claim that they could develop a turbofan engine for TF-X ready for mass production and application until 2029? That is just 10 years from 2019, 4 years shy of what TEI claimed was the necessary timeline to develop such an engine. Considering the fact that outside parties like GE and RR are still not involved in this program, there seems no factor to exist, that would help Turkey shorten their development timeline for a whopping 4 years.


Apart from all these, the plan to develop a 4.5th generation aircraft, the block 1 aircrafts, by 2029 and further develop a full-blown 5th generation aircraft by 2031, the block 2 aircrafts, is rather questionable. What kind of development plan is it, that a 4.5th generation aircraft becomes a 5th gen aircraft within 2 years time?

Well this at least is just my personal thought unlike the questions above which are based on the information given out by no other than the Turkish officials.

 

[aziqbal]

when is the Hurjet expect to make maiden flight?

 

[eagleeye]

first flight in 2022

Turkey's Hürjet to make first flight in 2022, first delivery in 2025

Within the scope of the Hürjet project initiated by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), a protocol has been signed between the company, the Defense...

www.dailysabah.com

 

[Deino]

first flight in 2022

Turkey's Hürjet to make first flight in 2022, first delivery in 2025

Within the scope of the Hürjet project initiated by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), a protocol has been signed between the company, the Defense...

www.dailysabah.com

Has construction already started?

 

[dr.knowhow]

Has construction already started?

The news says that they are going to roll out a prototype with engine this year.

 

[Deino]

The news says that they are going to roll out a prototype with engine this year.

But as you explained IMO perfectly the mismatches considering the MMU's timeline and still open questions, here it is the same: Turkish media reports so much, accepts no critical questions nor does they give explanations, but nothing fits together.

As such all we can do is sit and wait.