IDEF 2013 Turkey: Updates & Discussions
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revojam
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Yes it is Leopard.
Bismarck
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Of course, it is. I mean the upgrade.
Baykuş
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You are correct, it's the MBT Revolution upgrade package by Rheinmetall.
Baykuş
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To be honest, I can't find a source that verifies that the Turkish Army even have/will order the upgrade package.
LegionnairE
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guys @Major Shaitan Singh mixed up the pictures, it's not Aselsan's NG in the last picture, it's revolution
carry on
carry on
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-SINAN-
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Defence Turkey interview with Ed O’Donell, Vice President International Programs and Business Development at Pratt & Whitney
Defence Turkey: First of all thank you very much for the interview. How is the show going on, what are you displaying in the show? Can you please inform us about these details?
First of all show is going very well. It is interesting that I have been coming to IDEF now for I think since 2001 or 2002 time frame when It was in Ankara. To see it is growing every year more has been quite remarkable. In fact, I was worried that if IDEF came to Istanbul that we had a hard time to in able to meet Air Forces, with military as well as SSM because everybody was in Ankara. In Istanbul this has become much more than just a country show: a major Defence show. It has become much more regional many more countries and it is grown every year. Our ability interface with not only the Turkish government but also other governments as well as expanded. I have been extremely pleased to see what’s happened and I think whoever the decision to bring to İstanbul has made a good decision. At the beginning we were in IDEF with a small little booth. We were very close to Alp Aviation at that time so they showed us what to do and how to do things. We slowly moved up a little bit more and over the last several years we worked with Sikorsky very closely. As you know Sikorsky is a sister company of Pratt & Whitney .Both of us are working under United Technologies Corporation. So Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney have now joint forces and we share space on the stand. We are a little bit larger on foot print then before and a little bit closer in approximately to some of our customers better in this display as well. In addition to that we have continue to grow our relationship with Alp Aviation as well as Kale Kalıp. So as you go to both to Kale Kalıp and Alp Aviation, you will see the evidence of the relationship with Pratt & Whitney. There is some relationship that has grown with TAI two years ago in IDEF. We signed a MoU with TAI, you may remember that. So when you go to the different stands, you can now start to see a little more Pratt & Whitney presents. This year we have been a little bit further because of the joint venture that we established with Kale Kalıp. We have Kale and Pratt & Whitney stand this year which is three times bigger than the first original Pratt & Whitney stand that we had an Ankara so many years ago. So it clearly has become very important part of our business and it is very critical piece of our way to reach out to the customer to have meetings and conversations, not only with Turkey but with other countries.
Defence Turkey: Could you please inform us about the activities that you performed over the years in Turkey?
I think probably at 2000- 2001, I was asked to come and was given the opportunity to work on JSF program. I remember specifically one day given a phone call that a company from Turkey was coming to Pratt & Whitney and the company was Alp Aviation. At that time the senior Tuncay Alpata’s father was still alive and he came to Pratt & Whitney with his son because they were visiting Sikorksy since they were partner with Sikorsky. We had a conversation and we learned a little bit about what they did there. We were starting the JFS program and we knew Turkey was gonna join the JSF program so Pratt & Whitney knew very little about Turkey. Our first exposure really was the Alpata family. We were able to identify a part on the JSF engine that might be able to compete for. So we started very modest piece of hard work. And they want a very very competitive pricing, they want that competition and what has happened since then we have involved with rotating hardware on the front side of the engine with Alp Aviation Then that grew into another relationship with Kale Kalıp and now we are starting to do fabrications, hot forming, sheet metal work with our Kale facility. So it is a pretty extensive amount of work. If I cross all of the JFS partner countries, Turkey is by far one of the largest industrial contributive to the F135 program. The only country that exceeds Turkey in its industrial capability to this engine is the UK. It is largely because Royce & Royce does all of the STOVL and LiftSystem components for the airplane. That’s a big piece of the contribution we get from the UK, if you are to remove that from there, Turkey would be the largest of all of our industrial activity. That has nothing to do numbers of airplanes Turkey has gonna buy. It has everything to do with the capability that companies like Alp Aviation and like Kale Kalıp. In addition we have a large effort going on with Fokker Elmo in İzmir. Fokker Elmo does a lot of our wiring harnesses for the JSF engine and they do that here in Turkey as well. So we have Kale Kalıp, Fokker Elmo, and Alp Aviation. We continue to have very robust style with TAI as we look forward to the future for engine assembly.
Defence Turkey: What are the other companies besides this companies that you corporate with?
What you tend to find in doing jet engine work is very different than doing airplane work. There are many airplane companies that can do airplane structures, can cut the metal necessary for the airplanes and do some composites for the airplane. On engines, we use much more difficult materials. They are much more difficult materials and machines. We have much closer and tighter tolerances that we have to hold when we cut those parts. So the capital investment as well as the technology transfer ,capabilities and the expertise in the education levels, the engineering methodology that we need to have is a large investment for a lot of companies. Therefore there is a smaller group of companies that working in engine industry. I think we have four of the best that we work with, and we have been highly successful with that model.
Defence Turkey: Actually new investment with Kale Aero has been the milestone of Pratt & Whitney in Turkey. So what can you say about this investment and can you tell us about the structure and the formation of this investment?
I want to say it is almost ten years now. Osman Okyay and I actually had a meeting in my office at Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. He had an original idea that we could form a partnership in Turkey. So we talked for many years back and forward.. We were able to find very good core piece of business that was beneficially not only the Pratt & Whitney but also to Kale and to the Government of Turkey. So that partnership is a 51% ownership by the Kale family and 49% by Pratt & Whitney. Osman is the senior board member, the chairman of our board. We have three board members from Pratt & Whitney and three additional board members from Kale. The business is set up down in İzmir. It was largely developed for F135. As you know we had expected a lot work on F135. Because of the production levels were much lower than we anticipated, we have done a very good job of winning and competing for commercial work. So we work on commercial engines not only with Pratt & Whitney but also Pratt & Whitney Canada as well. We are also talking with United technologies Aerospace systems on trying to win some work because we have a business and whatever happens with the JSF, both Kale’s and Pratt & Whitney’s objective is to grow in that business. We have quite a little bit land in İzmir so we can actually expand it. We are right now working out of a space, but that space now over the course of the last 8 months we have gone for one machine to completely full least area. We are making production hardware now for number of different engines. If you go by the stand over the Kale stand right behind it, you will see Kale – Pratt & Whitney stand. You can actually see some of the first hardware that they started to produce. I would say 85% done with the construction of our new building down there. I think we have all the building completed hopefully by the end of June and we will start to move equipment in. We get ourselves to prepare Grand opening at the later part of this year.
Defence Turkey: Do you plan to make some export to the third countries with the corporation of the other Turkish companies or through by your investment in İzmir?
When Pratt & Whitney goes and has a relationship with the supplier, we look at them as a global supplier. So when we buy hardware from Kale Kalıp whether it is for the military, F135 or our commercial engines for Pratt & Whitney Canada, that hardware goes to third countries. So you came to Pratt & Whitney and Pratt & Whitney will put it in the engines that will go to other countries or the other customers. That material will come in and it will become spare parts for other customers whether they are commercial customers or military customers. That is same all through for Alp Aviation and Fokker Elmo. So we don’t have partnerships in supplier relationships for just one country. So as soon as you come into our supply chain, you are a supplier for third parties.
Defence Turkey: What about your future plans in Turkey, your interested areas, interested programs?
Ed: I think right now we have a couple primary focuses. Certainly the Joint Strike Fighters is extremely important to Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed Martin and the government of Turkey as well. Not only important to those entities but also it is extremely important to Kale Kalıp, Alp Aviation, Fokker Elmo and all the companies that were involved in JSF programme. In many ways when you look at the industrial contributions here in Turkey, you can almost look at JSF as indigenous fighter because there is so much of this airplane that’s been built in Turkey. It is a national enterprise. So as we, Pratt & Whitney, see back and say what is the next step for us in Turkey.
The next step for us is to find a way. We know Turkey has a strong aspiration to do engine assembly. We also know Turkey has a strong aspiration to do overhaul repair of the F35 engine not only for Turkey but also for other regions. So what we were doing is working very closely with the US government, working very closely with the Turkish government and with Turkish industry to see if we can find an acceptable solution that we could go forward to establish that capability here in Turkey.
Defence Turkey:Thank you very much for the interview. Would you like to add some message for our readers?
I think, to me the biggest message to readers is that we are all in the F35 program together. The F35 is not a US program, not a singular Turkish, Dutch or UK program. It is a program that we all working on together and we are working on a piece of history right now. This is one of the greatest airplanes that will ever be produced. None of us would succeed without each other. There is a huge presents here in Turkey. There are thousands of man and woman working on the Joint Strike Fighter not only for Turkey but all the customers. We have to work effectively together going forward. If we do that well- I am sure we will- we have the opportunity to the safeguard all of our populations in the future. We have the opportunity to continue to work well together as good collaborative partnership so you know I think the enthusiasm that I have for the JSF program really gets back to all the man and woman working on things. We are doing some great things together not only on this program but all the technology transfer that we are working on together. We are going to grow very well together on forward.
The other thing that I would say that I happened to be retiring from my position which I had the opportunity work with Turkey now since 2000. When we first started, we had absolutely no presents in Turkey, none so ever. Many people of Pratt & Whitney said that we should probably not spend too much time trying to work in Turkey because our competitor had such a strong presents here in Turkey. I found it to be quite the opposite. I found Turkey extremely open. I found Turkey to have great technology, great manufacturing capability, probably about all great optimism and very true to co-principals, integrity and honesty and doing the right thing. So for Pratt & Whitney it became very easy,, when we ran in the companies like Kale Kalıp, Alp Aviation to get started. I would also say that for me It was always great to know that Murad Bayar particular was always there in Ankara. He never made us feel that we didn’t have an opportunity, he always helped us to try different thing and have different opportunities. He always rewarded us when we did well. I think that is another sign of being open, and honest and being fair. Those are a lot of things we found here, I have found over the years. I do have the pleasure the privilege to turn over my responsibilities to Mr. Tyler Evans and Tyler is going to continue to take us over the next ten years like I can only imagine where we will be in ten years in Turkey.
Defence Turkey: First of all thank you very much for the interview. How is the show going on, what are you displaying in the show? Can you please inform us about these details?
First of all show is going very well. It is interesting that I have been coming to IDEF now for I think since 2001 or 2002 time frame when It was in Ankara. To see it is growing every year more has been quite remarkable. In fact, I was worried that if IDEF came to Istanbul that we had a hard time to in able to meet Air Forces, with military as well as SSM because everybody was in Ankara. In Istanbul this has become much more than just a country show: a major Defence show. It has become much more regional many more countries and it is grown every year. Our ability interface with not only the Turkish government but also other governments as well as expanded. I have been extremely pleased to see what’s happened and I think whoever the decision to bring to İstanbul has made a good decision. At the beginning we were in IDEF with a small little booth. We were very close to Alp Aviation at that time so they showed us what to do and how to do things. We slowly moved up a little bit more and over the last several years we worked with Sikorsky very closely. As you know Sikorsky is a sister company of Pratt & Whitney .Both of us are working under United Technologies Corporation. So Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney have now joint forces and we share space on the stand. We are a little bit larger on foot print then before and a little bit closer in approximately to some of our customers better in this display as well. In addition to that we have continue to grow our relationship with Alp Aviation as well as Kale Kalıp. So as you go to both to Kale Kalıp and Alp Aviation, you will see the evidence of the relationship with Pratt & Whitney. There is some relationship that has grown with TAI two years ago in IDEF. We signed a MoU with TAI, you may remember that. So when you go to the different stands, you can now start to see a little more Pratt & Whitney presents. This year we have been a little bit further because of the joint venture that we established with Kale Kalıp. We have Kale and Pratt & Whitney stand this year which is three times bigger than the first original Pratt & Whitney stand that we had an Ankara so many years ago. So it clearly has become very important part of our business and it is very critical piece of our way to reach out to the customer to have meetings and conversations, not only with Turkey but with other countries.
Defence Turkey: Could you please inform us about the activities that you performed over the years in Turkey?
I think probably at 2000- 2001, I was asked to come and was given the opportunity to work on JSF program. I remember specifically one day given a phone call that a company from Turkey was coming to Pratt & Whitney and the company was Alp Aviation. At that time the senior Tuncay Alpata’s father was still alive and he came to Pratt & Whitney with his son because they were visiting Sikorksy since they were partner with Sikorsky. We had a conversation and we learned a little bit about what they did there. We were starting the JFS program and we knew Turkey was gonna join the JSF program so Pratt & Whitney knew very little about Turkey. Our first exposure really was the Alpata family. We were able to identify a part on the JSF engine that might be able to compete for. So we started very modest piece of hard work. And they want a very very competitive pricing, they want that competition and what has happened since then we have involved with rotating hardware on the front side of the engine with Alp Aviation Then that grew into another relationship with Kale Kalıp and now we are starting to do fabrications, hot forming, sheet metal work with our Kale facility. So it is a pretty extensive amount of work. If I cross all of the JFS partner countries, Turkey is by far one of the largest industrial contributive to the F135 program. The only country that exceeds Turkey in its industrial capability to this engine is the UK. It is largely because Royce & Royce does all of the STOVL and LiftSystem components for the airplane. That’s a big piece of the contribution we get from the UK, if you are to remove that from there, Turkey would be the largest of all of our industrial activity. That has nothing to do numbers of airplanes Turkey has gonna buy. It has everything to do with the capability that companies like Alp Aviation and like Kale Kalıp. In addition we have a large effort going on with Fokker Elmo in İzmir. Fokker Elmo does a lot of our wiring harnesses for the JSF engine and they do that here in Turkey as well. So we have Kale Kalıp, Fokker Elmo, and Alp Aviation. We continue to have very robust style with TAI as we look forward to the future for engine assembly.
Defence Turkey: What are the other companies besides this companies that you corporate with?
What you tend to find in doing jet engine work is very different than doing airplane work. There are many airplane companies that can do airplane structures, can cut the metal necessary for the airplanes and do some composites for the airplane. On engines, we use much more difficult materials. They are much more difficult materials and machines. We have much closer and tighter tolerances that we have to hold when we cut those parts. So the capital investment as well as the technology transfer ,capabilities and the expertise in the education levels, the engineering methodology that we need to have is a large investment for a lot of companies. Therefore there is a smaller group of companies that working in engine industry. I think we have four of the best that we work with, and we have been highly successful with that model.
Defence Turkey: Actually new investment with Kale Aero has been the milestone of Pratt & Whitney in Turkey. So what can you say about this investment and can you tell us about the structure and the formation of this investment?
I want to say it is almost ten years now. Osman Okyay and I actually had a meeting in my office at Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. He had an original idea that we could form a partnership in Turkey. So we talked for many years back and forward.. We were able to find very good core piece of business that was beneficially not only the Pratt & Whitney but also to Kale and to the Government of Turkey. So that partnership is a 51% ownership by the Kale family and 49% by Pratt & Whitney. Osman is the senior board member, the chairman of our board. We have three board members from Pratt & Whitney and three additional board members from Kale. The business is set up down in İzmir. It was largely developed for F135. As you know we had expected a lot work on F135. Because of the production levels were much lower than we anticipated, we have done a very good job of winning and competing for commercial work. So we work on commercial engines not only with Pratt & Whitney but also Pratt & Whitney Canada as well. We are also talking with United technologies Aerospace systems on trying to win some work because we have a business and whatever happens with the JSF, both Kale’s and Pratt & Whitney’s objective is to grow in that business. We have quite a little bit land in İzmir so we can actually expand it. We are right now working out of a space, but that space now over the course of the last 8 months we have gone for one machine to completely full least area. We are making production hardware now for number of different engines. If you go by the stand over the Kale stand right behind it, you will see Kale – Pratt & Whitney stand. You can actually see some of the first hardware that they started to produce. I would say 85% done with the construction of our new building down there. I think we have all the building completed hopefully by the end of June and we will start to move equipment in. We get ourselves to prepare Grand opening at the later part of this year.
Defence Turkey: Do you plan to make some export to the third countries with the corporation of the other Turkish companies or through by your investment in İzmir?
When Pratt & Whitney goes and has a relationship with the supplier, we look at them as a global supplier. So when we buy hardware from Kale Kalıp whether it is for the military, F135 or our commercial engines for Pratt & Whitney Canada, that hardware goes to third countries. So you came to Pratt & Whitney and Pratt & Whitney will put it in the engines that will go to other countries or the other customers. That material will come in and it will become spare parts for other customers whether they are commercial customers or military customers. That is same all through for Alp Aviation and Fokker Elmo. So we don’t have partnerships in supplier relationships for just one country. So as soon as you come into our supply chain, you are a supplier for third parties.
Defence Turkey: What about your future plans in Turkey, your interested areas, interested programs?
Ed: I think right now we have a couple primary focuses. Certainly the Joint Strike Fighters is extremely important to Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed Martin and the government of Turkey as well. Not only important to those entities but also it is extremely important to Kale Kalıp, Alp Aviation, Fokker Elmo and all the companies that were involved in JSF programme. In many ways when you look at the industrial contributions here in Turkey, you can almost look at JSF as indigenous fighter because there is so much of this airplane that’s been built in Turkey. It is a national enterprise. So as we, Pratt & Whitney, see back and say what is the next step for us in Turkey.
The next step for us is to find a way. We know Turkey has a strong aspiration to do engine assembly. We also know Turkey has a strong aspiration to do overhaul repair of the F35 engine not only for Turkey but also for other regions. So what we were doing is working very closely with the US government, working very closely with the Turkish government and with Turkish industry to see if we can find an acceptable solution that we could go forward to establish that capability here in Turkey.
Defence Turkey:Thank you very much for the interview. Would you like to add some message for our readers?
I think, to me the biggest message to readers is that we are all in the F35 program together. The F35 is not a US program, not a singular Turkish, Dutch or UK program. It is a program that we all working on together and we are working on a piece of history right now. This is one of the greatest airplanes that will ever be produced. None of us would succeed without each other. There is a huge presents here in Turkey. There are thousands of man and woman working on the Joint Strike Fighter not only for Turkey but all the customers. We have to work effectively together going forward. If we do that well- I am sure we will- we have the opportunity to the safeguard all of our populations in the future. We have the opportunity to continue to work well together as good collaborative partnership so you know I think the enthusiasm that I have for the JSF program really gets back to all the man and woman working on things. We are doing some great things together not only on this program but all the technology transfer that we are working on together. We are going to grow very well together on forward.
The other thing that I would say that I happened to be retiring from my position which I had the opportunity work with Turkey now since 2000. When we first started, we had absolutely no presents in Turkey, none so ever. Many people of Pratt & Whitney said that we should probably not spend too much time trying to work in Turkey because our competitor had such a strong presents here in Turkey. I found it to be quite the opposite. I found Turkey extremely open. I found Turkey to have great technology, great manufacturing capability, probably about all great optimism and very true to co-principals, integrity and honesty and doing the right thing. So for Pratt & Whitney it became very easy,, when we ran in the companies like Kale Kalıp, Alp Aviation to get started. I would also say that for me It was always great to know that Murad Bayar particular was always there in Ankara. He never made us feel that we didn’t have an opportunity, he always helped us to try different thing and have different opportunities. He always rewarded us when we did well. I think that is another sign of being open, and honest and being fair. Those are a lot of things we found here, I have found over the years. I do have the pleasure the privilege to turn over my responsibilities to Mr. Tyler Evans and Tyler is going to continue to take us over the next ten years like I can only imagine where we will be in ten years in Turkey.
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Seyfullah
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Leopard 2 Next Generation
German success story continues the new LEOPARD 2 A7+
Krauss-Maffei Wegmann’s LEOPARD 2 has heralded the next generation of main battle tanks. Named LEOPARD 2 A7+ it incorporates a modular protection kit, increased mobility, improved sustainability, enhanced recce-abilities and an even more precise deployment of its various weapons.
Furthermore it has successfully been tested and qualified by the German Army’s authorities and therefore pursues the LEOPARD’s pervious and unmatched success story. The LEOPARD 2 A7+ follows a modular design and thus allowsoperations in urban terrain as well as high intensity operations.
Next to the unmatched IED and mine protection the modular protection concept allows the integration of an urban operations kit that also offers a 3600 protection against RPG while a duel-kit retains the crew from KE- and SC-projectiles especially on the frontal arc in classical duel-situations.
Target oriented firepower
The capability to fire the new programmable 120mm HE-round enables the crew to engage targets behind cover nd within buildings.
Fitted with KMW’s remote controlled weapon station FLW 200, which is operable under protection, the LEOAPRD 2 A7+ is assertive in both built-up and non-built-up terrain.
Increased mobility
The LEOPARD 2 A7+ benefits from an increased mobility by a newly developed final drive, a new track, enhanced torsion bars, an improved brake-system and an adaptable dozer blade to clear obstacles for following vehicles.
Enhanced sustainability
Furthermore it is equipped with a high-performance cooling unit and an APU (auxiliary power unit) to accomplish a 24-hour battle day. The redesigned operational concept allows the crew to utilize the new capabilities efficiently.
Enhanced reconnaissance and situational awareness
The commander and gunner benefit from the 3rd generation ATTICAâ„¢ thermal sight, near field surveillance at day and night as well as day and night cameras for the driver.
Definitely beast!
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