Madrid, April 29 (EFE).- The president and CEO of Turkish Aerospace, Mehmet Demiroğlu, has assured that although the base of the Saeta II training aircraft has Turkish technology, its evolution and development will be Spanish, due to the maintenance that Airbus will coordinate, with the ability to apply modifications according to the needs of the Spanish Armed Forces.
Turkish Aerospace yesterday signed a contract with the Spanish Government for the acquisition of 30 Hürjet training aircraft, which in Spain will be called Saeta II, in homage to the first Spanish Hispano Aviación HA-200 Saeta jet.
In this regard, during the EFE Defense Dialogues ‘From Ankara to Talavera la Real: The Hürjet and the new era of Spanish defense’, Demiroğlu insisted that “you cannot just look at the sheet metal of the plane, but at the entire life cycle of the project.”
The agreement will have a value of 2.6 billion euros and the first delivery is scheduled in the second half of 2028, with the aim of completing it by 2031: “We are going to provide the platform. Airbus – the company chosen to coordinate the project in Spain – is going to provide the training equipment and systems. And there will be a series of (Spanish) companies, a total of 14, that will provide certain subcomponents.”
During the interview conducted by the head of Institutional Relations of EFE, José Manuel Sanz, the Turkish manager also made reference to the current geopolitical context that has forced the defense sector to move very quickly.
Based on its experience in recent conflicts, profitability is key “now” for those countries that are looking for products that are manufactured quickly and efficiently, such as, for example, drones.
Demiroğlu explained that when the war between Ukraine and Russia began, in February 2022, they thought it would be a conventional conflict with tanks and armored vehicles, but its evolution and that of other cases such as Pakistan against India or the United States and Israel against Iran have left a high rate of use of missiles, air defense and other light products.
“Very expensive platforms with very advanced technology used to be required. Now no one wants that. They want something that works, that is profitable and that is manufactured as quickly as possible,” commented the manager, who added that the company adapted its portfolio to offer solutions based on the needs of nations.
Looking to the future, Demiroğlu referred to KAAN, Turkey’s fifth-generation fighter aircraft, which right now is, in his words, the number one program, “not only in the Turkish aerospace industry, but also in Turkish defense, because it is not a platform, it is also building an ecosystem.”
The established plan is that the first two real test prototypes will fly this year, and a third next year, so that by 2027 or 2028 they will put the first serial production prototype into the air and, shortly after, they will deliver the KAAN Block 10 to the Turkish Air Force.
“Within NATO there are a series of countries that develop technologies long before others. Not to compete with them, but also to give strength to NATO because if each country is stronger than in the past, then the alliance will be stronger,” he concluded. EFE
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