Posted on 05/11/2018 6:34:23 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
The first fighter jet F-35A bought by the Turkish Armed Forces made its maiden flight in Fort Worth, Texas, the Dutch Aviation Society announced on Twitter.
The jet produced by Lockheed Martin had tail number 18-0001 and was flown by Commander Wilson. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is expected take delivery of the first batch of 30 Lockheed Martin F-35 single-engine fighters at a ceremony in the United States on Jun. 21, in spite of a U.S. Congress bill calling for a halt in weapons sales due to faltering relations between the two countries. Lockheed Martin has not issued any statement to confirm this news.
The bill was proposed to the U.S. Congress on May 8, calling for a report on U.S.-Turkish relations and demanding the suspension of U.S. weapons sales to Turkey until the report’s publication.
The bill referred to “strained relations” between the pair of NATO allies, blaming these on “provocative actions” by the Turkish government and Turkey’s deal to purchase S-400 missile defence systems from Russia. Whether the proposed bill might endanger the delivery date of these jets is known, at least for now.
(Excerpt) Read more at ahvalnews2.com ...
All I am going to say is: I don't like this at all.
We should not be letting Turkey buy our latest aircraft.
And certainly not sharing the design technology.
shut it down and buy the aircraft for usaf
I will admit I’m sympathetic to that view.
On the other hand if we don’t do business with Turkey, Russia or China will. Then we’ve driven Turkey into one of their camps.
Further, if we don’t approve of these sales, it hurts the aircraft manufacturer’s bottom line, making them less profitable.
We do have leverage, if they want the goods. I think we should have a good old dutch uncle discussion with Turkey’s leadership.
Totally unacceptable.
Continuing F-16 sales and support was sufficient.
No reason to give them access to these.
I hope we have some way to disable the avionics if necessary.
How the hell does turkey get our f35 turkey?
We don’t sell anything to another country without an ON/OFF switch.
Let them buy from Russia. Gross foolishness to let them buy F35
I recognize you both have reasoned objections.
I don’t stand in abject disagreement with you.
We could give turkey all those F-35’s the Airforce already has that will never be combat coded.
Strip some of the stealth materials off the above aircraft, and maybe hide a self destruct device in them too then ship them to the turks.
Turkey has already chosen its' side, and it's with Russia & Iran. It certainly shouldn't be allowed access to our technology which will no doubt be shown to their new buddies...
Sounds like a good way to recoup the loss.
“On the other hand if we don’t do business with Turkey, Russia or China will. Then we’ve driven Turkey into one of their camps.”
On the other hand if we don’t sell guns to MS-13 and ISIS, Russia and China will. Then we’ve driven MS-13 and ISIS into one of their camps.
“I don’t like this at all.”
Ditto! Turkey never should have been admitted into NATO!
“I hope we have some way to disable the avionics if necessary.”
In an F-35 disabled avionics in the computer code is a standard feature, not a bug.
I still think there’s room to seek to motivate them to moderate their most recent actions.
Simply writing them off isn’t a real solution either.
Look, in a world where North Korea is coming around, we shouldn’t dismiss any possibility.
I might be inclined to offer them a lesser aircraft and see what I could get for it.
Turkey already planning to attack Israel. They want to be dominant power in Middle East. Erdogan wants to be the caliph of the coming caliphate. It’s Fruit Basket Upset over there. Everybody sees a chance to grab power from all the others.
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