dr.knowhow
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I think Hürjet could potentially become a decent light attack aircraft but on the other hand should wonder where this light attack/fighter jet variant of Hürjet could fit inside the Turkish Air Force inventory.
It seems like alongside the growing economy of the Turkish Republic the Turkish Airforce is growing as well, but from what I've observed so far, the planned quantitatove expansion is reserved for thr TF-X and various UAVs.
TuAF seems to be planning to further use their Peace Onyx I F-16s, given that they have improved its structures so it could serve for additional 4,000 hours of flight duty, thus upgrading it with new avionics with Özgür project. That probably means service at least into mid 2030s and possibly even after 2040. I also expect Tukey to implement such upgrade for the Peace Onyx II ~ IV aircrafts as well.
The space left by the soon to be retired F-4s are going to be filled with TF-X a few years later. According to what the TuAF and SSB are claiming the TF-X would be produced in numbers bigger than 100 airframes. This would mean that it wouldn't only replace the 40-ish F-4s.
That all together would mean a TuAF inventory in the mid 2030s with 270-ish F-16s with upgraded avionics and 50~80- ish TF-X, depending on the budget restraints and production speed of TAI. Add several UAVs on top of that, ranging from Anka, Aksungur and so on.
I don't see a place in the near future where Hürjet attack aircraft fits, as I've mentioned above. So my take is that TuAF would only buy the ATJ and LIFT variant of the Hürjet in the near future. In such case, it is either left for TAI to fund the system integration of various combat systems like the radar and armaments themselves or the government paying for what they would probably not use for the sake of export.
Maybe things would change when the F-16s start retiring, but once more according to the Turkish officials, TF-X is aimed to cost around $80 milion flyaway. This is not cheap but also not too expensive in today's stamdards as well. In order to achieve sufficient economics of scale the TuAF has to replace F-16s with TF-X as well. Maybe only then they would produce a few Hürjet with combat capabilities for ligther duty missions like air patrolling or CAS. Still, that would probably be quite some time after the introsuction of the Hürjet. What do you think?
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