08.09.2004, 21:08
Zitat:Turkish procurement authorities are providing some details of their renewed effort to buy scores of attack helicopters in a multibillion-dollar contest.Quelle: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=248068&messageid=1094669731&lp=1094669731">http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?f ... 1094669731</a><!-- m -->
Turkey’s procurement and military authorities said they are planning to purchase the helicopter gunships from a foreign contractor in batches of tens, eventually acquiring 91 choppers under the program.
A procurement official familiar with the program said the first 20 gunships will be acquired in fully operational form.
“After the first 20, we are planning to buy the platforms and install the IFF [Identification Friend or Foe], mission computer and some electronic systems locally,” he said Aug. 29.
Turkey’s procurement office, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, or Savunma Sanayi Mustesarligi (SSM) in Turkish, and the state scientific research institution TUBITAK are working jointly on a project to develop mission computers for the gunships.
A military official said an initial idea to buy the platforms with skid landing gear has been dropped. “That would have been defining the product of one particular bidder,” Bell Helicopter Textron of Fort Worth, Texas, he said. “The competition is open to both skid and wheeled models.”