IDEF 2015: TAI position for Polish Kruk attack helicopter
06th May 2015 - 14:21by
Tim Fish in Istanbul
TAI has signed two MoUs with Polish defence companies at the IDEF exhibition as it builds up to compete for Poland’s attack helicopter programme – Kruk.
On 5 May the company signed an MoU with Mesko and a further agreement the following day with WCBKT. It expects to sign further such agreements with Polish industry when the Kruk RfP is released. The country plans to purchase a total of 32 attack helicopters.
Gorkem Bilgi, business development manager for the helicopter group at TAI, told Shephard that the agreement with Mesko is for the armaments and sight systems for its offering of the
Turkish T129 ATAK rotorcraft. The deal with WCBKT is for ground support equipment.
TAI is going up against bids from Airbus Helicopters, Bell and Boeing. The former company has already been selected as the provider for Poland’s utility helicopter programme.
By building a coalition of local industry within its bidding group, TAI hopes to be able to strongly respond to the RfP, which Bilgi said hopes will come in Q3 2015.
‘It is a win-win for us,’ he said. ‘There is a huge aviation industry in Poland with lots of local industry, and we are willing to cooperate with other companies.’
TAI builds the
T129 under licence from AgustaWestland, which itself owns Polish company PZL-Świdnik. Bilgi said that TAI and PZL-Świdnik are in talks about the latter being a completion centre, but that they are still in talks.
In the meantime, TAI is awaiting the decision to release the RfP by the Polish Army Inspectorate procurement organisation, so that it can get details about Polish Army requirements.
The Turkish Army is already taking delivery of T129A ATAK helicopters from TAI.
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