Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) continues to carry out projects that contribute to the country’s aviation sector with the latest being a bird strike testing facility that will benefit domestic aviation projects.
The company said in a statement Friday that the facility will now enable one of the tests required for the development and certification processes of aircraft to be conducted within the country.
The test data of the domestic aircraft will be kept in the country with TAI’s testing facility.
Aircraft to be tested on the facility include Hürjet, the advanced jet trainer and light attack aircraft and the National Combat Aircraft (TF-X MMU), a fifth-generation jet with similar features to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II which was dubbed one of the most important projects in the Turkish aviation sector and will be unveiled for the first time on March 18, 2023.
TAI aims to minimize the damage to the aircraft from bird strikes which are considered one of the biggest threats to aviation.
The facility, which will enable the development of solutions in this field, has been designed to appeal to the use of all sectors that need this test. The facility is expected to be popular outside of Turkey as well.
The facility assesses the damage to the aircraft components after bird molds made of gel of various sizes and weights are launched at it. The test data to be obtained will contribute to the development processes of critical components of all platforms and aircraft produced by TAI.
TAI Head Temel Kotil, whose views were included in the company statement said that they attribute great importance to developing unique products for a fully independent defense industry as well as testing these products with domestic infrastructure.
“We ensure that the test data remain in our country. The Bird Strike Test Facility is a facility located only in certain countries of the world and we are happy to bring it to our country,”he said, congratulating his colleagues who contributed to “the new capability we have brought to our country’s aviation ecosystem.”