mike2000 is back
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I don't think you should take what some Members here say that seriously. Most members here are more nationalistic than otherwise, so it's normal that they will make such bold nationalistic claims like/ WE DON'T NEED THE F-35' and we will soon induct one ourselves independently of the the West(which some consider an enemy). What some don't realise is that it's almost impossible for Turkey to produce a credible world standard 5th generation fighter jet independently. They have not and can't even produced a credible/viable 3rd-4th generation fighter jet independently. Very few countries have the industrial capabilities/experience/supply chain/skills and technical know how to produce a fighter jet, much less a 5th generation one. A country will need to create a complete supply chain, an eco system where every company and skills people to work together to create a product and that requires a near perfect planning. Plus once you have created a jet, testing is required, design modifications will be required until the jet has finally met the specifications as set out. Yes, all this could be done, but a medium country like say Malaysia would have almost drained it's defence budget(tens of billions will have been spent in this endeavour alone). It could also result as a failed project, unless everyone is working for free or working for something to achieve something then that would be a totally different story. Moreover, a single hit in 1 area of supply chain will affect the rest of the project. It's for this reason that actually building a viable fighter jet is that difficult(reason only select few countries have been able to do so far). The country that could build fighters are those with decades of experience of building them, they have a solid supply chains of thousands of companies, supported by people with decades of experience of building fighter jets, and they built on this to move up to 5th generation ones.You think that's some mathematical equation?
That's totally not how it works, 100 F-35s would decimate anything in air to air combat. Kill ratio of F-35 in exercises against 4th gen aircraft are 27:1.
Plus once you have created a jet, testing is required, design modifications will be required until the jet has finally met the specifications as set out. Yes, all this could be done, but a country like Malaysia would have drained its budget. It could also result as a failed project! unless everyone is working for free or working for something to achieve something then that would be a totally different story.
So any talk of doing so in a few years i'm afraid is just wishful thinking. Even with our defence giants helping Turkey it will still take a lot of time for a prototype to even appear. Plus, the way things are going we might not even go through with it if there's an unexpected fallout between Turkey and the Western powers. So still remains to be seen.
By contrast the F-35 is already in service with several countries and still growing and maturing with each passing year. It has basically no equivalent in the World right now(the only mature 5th generation fighter jet in mass production) and covers a whole lot of spectrum. It's no wonder Turkish leaders despite all their grandstanding are still pushing for the US to deliver their F-35. There simply have no other viable alternative out there. So they got no choice to be honest.
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