Cross posting this in the engine thread as well as it is indeed the most important engine program Turkey has atm. I hope that the admins could set up some guidelines so that all the relevant and related topics could stay in one thread. Either all engine related topics to be posted here or we only post engine related topics that doesn't have it's dedicated thread like the "TF-X/Hurjet thread" or "Turkish UAV program thread" get posted here. I think it's okay when we have either of the choices but I personally prefer the latter solution. I mean it makes more sense to only talk about Altay's powerpack in "Altay thread" and domestic fighter jet engine in the "TF-X/Hurjet thread" rather than having it all discussed here in the same thread simultaneously. Same could be said about others threads like "Turkish sensors and detectors program" thread as well.
Anyways, to figure out myself and help out the non-Turkish members of the forum understand the military gas turbine manufacturing industry in Turkey, I've dug in a bit about it.
1.) TEI which is a joint venture of TUSAS (T stands for TUSAS) and GE has been responsible for most of the license built and domestically developed gas turbine engines that were in use by the Turkish Armed Forces. Having GE be one of the majority stakeholder made sense because Turkish Armed Forces was heavily reliant in GE built gas turbines in both air and sea.
2.) Then F-35 uses the P&W built F135 engine which probably was the problem for TEI to get involved in with its manufacturing in Turkey. I suspect that for this reason Kale was selected to partner up with P&W in order for Turkey to get involved in F135 program. There are questions though, regarding the possibility of TAI setting up another subsidiary as a JV with P&W instead of selecting a completely different company that is Kale.
3.) US-Turkey relationship sours and Turkey opts for alternatives for the American engines to be used in MMU. They eventually decide to build a domestic jet engine and 2 consortiums compete for the bid, which are TEI which obviously GE was a partner of and TAEC, a JV between Kale and RR. GE soon drops and TAEC was deemed to be the likely winner of the bid. But RR soon follows GE to drop its bid.
4.) There were a few news regarding the renegotiation with RR-British government and Turkey, but not much has came to fruition it seems.
5.) Finally TR Motor is announced as the contractor as the supplier of the domestic engine for the MMU and it is also revealed that Turkey is planning for a domestic engine for Hurjet as well. TR Motor is basically TEI but without GE but having BMC in the equation. Nothing much is known of this regard but I suspect that it has a lot to do with Turkey-Qatar relationship and the likely involvement of the Qataris in the domestic engine program.
Apart from politics itself, I still think there are some reasons which makes sense having BMC involved. The Qataris are largely connected with the BMC company and regarded close allies with Turkey for recent years. On top of that they have the oil-money which Turkey would definitely need when they are planning to develop a fighter jet engine that matches F100/F110.
There are other questions to be asked as well. Such as, if the negotiation with RR is still going on? Is Turkey still looking for a foreign partner for the domestic jet engine or are they going completely stand alone? We haven't heard much about it as well. Then again even when they get RR as a partner, would it be Kale working with them or TEI? Would the British be willing to let Qataris get involved in form of BMC?
Last but not least, as mentioned on other thread, 2026~2027 being the deadline shortly followed by 2029 deadline would mean that the firing up of the first prototype in this particular time period (within 6~7 years) would not only be the testing of the core but a complete engine itself. It would be impossible to only have the engine core then have only 2~3 years to get the complete engine ready for flight. We all know that a lot of Turkish members here think that Turkey can make this happen and there were equal amount of doubts coming from other foreign members of the forum. I usually think that I am not in a position to judge on these kinds of matters so I would not say if it's possible or not but it surely is very, very ambitious development schedule.