Combat aircraft

The new course at Isparta taps into

30 square miles of training areas with

mountains and lakes. The most important

reason for the move here was to decon ict

from the busy airspace around Ankara. It

also re ects the success of the training,

which has attracted international students

from Albania, Azerbaijan, China, Saudi

Arabia, Jordan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Indeed, Turkey is now running the Multi-

national Military Flight Crew Training

School (MMFCTS). Established in 2015, the

MMFCTS opens up the Turkish training

system to NATO and other partner

countries for basic and advanced rotary

instruction. Coskun says, ‘It will increase

interoperability among countries for

future operations.’ Not only aviators, but

also technicians from other armed forces

can be trained in one location.

From a Turkish perspective, the

main focus is the T129 and the new

CH-47F Chinook. On November 2016,

the  rst three CH-47Fs were delivered

to Güvercinlik. This completed the

initial batch of six airframes —  ve for

the Special Air Group and one for the

General Sta.

The arrival of these new types o set

increasing troubles with older airframes.

Lt Col Murat Bolat, the maintenance

battalion commander, says, ‘Maintenance

of the AH-1P/W  eet is becoming

more challenging, especially the gun.

Acquisition of spare parts is not easy

through the FMS [Foreign Military Sales]

program and it is too costly to start up the

production of new parts.’

Despite internal troubles on both

security and political levels, the Army

Aviation Command has been able to

posture itself for the future, with new

equipment tapping into the Turkish

aerospace industry’s grand ambitions on

the world stage.

Above left to

right: The Hava

Ulaştırma Grup

Komutanlığı (Air

Transport Group)

at Güvercinlik

operates a mix of

fi xed-wing aircraft

and helicopters

including four

AS532UL

Cougars, of which

two are in VIP

confi guration and

one a search and

rescue fi t.

The Military Police

(Türk Jandarma

Havacılık

Komutanlığı) has

a training school

at Güvercinlik

that operates

Mi-17Vs, S-70s

and AB205s.

The Turkish Army is the largest operator

of the UH-1/AB-205 in Europe. Aselsan has

recently upgraded their self-protection

systems.

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