AgustaWestland Wins Turk Gunship Contest

By BURAK EGE BEKDIL, ANKARA And UMIT ENGINSOY, WASHINGTON


Turkey has selected the AgustaWestland’s A129 Mangusta International as the winner of its nearly $2.7 billion attack helicopter contest for 50 platforms, and the two sides now will launch contract talks, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul announced March 30.

“As a result of evaluation of bids from AgustaWestland and [South Africa’s] Denel, that earlier had been shortlisted in our Army’s attack helicopter project, we have decided to start contract negotiations with AgustaWestland,” he told reporters after a meeting of the Defense Industry Executive Committee, Turkey’s top decision-making body on defense procurement.

Deliveries of the helicopters are expected between 2011 and 2013, a Turkish defense source said.

The committee’s members include Gonul; Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Murad Bayar, the undersecretary of defense industries; and Army Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the General Staff.

Turkey’s Tusas Aerospace Industries (TAI), Akinci, will be the local prime contractor and jointly manufacture the platforms with AgustaWestland, Cascina Costa, Italy.

Gonul said that the top criterion in the selection of AgustaWestland over Pretoria-based Denel, maker of the CSH-2 Rooivalk, was a major price difference between the two sides’ bids.

He said this new Turkish attack helicopter would be dubbed T-129.
“This project has been around for some 12 years, and today we made a historic decision,” the defense minister said.

Gonul also announced that Turkey’s Otokar, a subsidiary of the Istanbul-based industry conglomerate Koc Holding, was selected to develop a new Turkish main battle tank for the Army in a program that could cost more than $10 billion over the next few decades.
Otokar had been in a fierce competition with another Turkish partnership, FNSS and BMC.

Under this program, Otokar will design, develop and manufacture a prototype of what officials call “Turkey’s national tank.”

“We will spend nearly $500 million for this initial phase of the project,” Gonul said.
The time table for the tank’s development remains unclear.


defensenews.com

znači A129 će leteti kod turaka. eto konkurencije grčkim AH-64.

Tesko da A129 moze da parira AH-64. To mogu samo Mi-28 i Ka-50.

A sta bi sa kobrama koje su prakticno trebale da se proizvode u Turskoj?

Mislim da će tu fabriku koristiti za prepravke kobri drugih korisnika iz okruženja.

Kobre su vec zastarele , cak i Iran proizvodi svoju kopiju .

dobre su kobre, pakistan je pre nekoliko mesci primio osam najmodernijih modela... pa kad se nema novca za bolje, sta fali i njima!

Pakistan je 2 Februara 2007 primio 8 modernizovanih AH-1F Kobri koje su pripadale američkoj kopnenoj vojsci. Tih 8 predstavljaju dio od 20 modernizovanih AH-1F Kobri koliko će biti uvedeno u arsenal pakistanskih oružanih snaga. Pored njih, Pakistan je kupio još 20 AH-1F koje će koristiti za rezervne djelove.
Modernizaciju je na prvih 20 primjeraka koji su dovedeni u letno stanje je izvršila kompanija DynCorp iz Portorika.
Pakistan je prije ovog 1984 nabavio 20 AH-1S Kobri od kojih 19 i dalje operativno(jedan je izgubljen u udesu).