İsmail Demir, President Defence Industry Agency, said that the F-16s would be put into the service of the Turkish Air Force within the scope of the Özgür Project. He further stated that the capabilities obtained with this project will also be used in Turkish Fighter (TF) and that they will try the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar "Murad" in Akıncı UAV for the first time.
Demir, who was in front of the cameras with Haluk Görgün, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ASELSAN, at the company’s Gölbaşı facilities for the promotion of AESA Radar, gave information about the process. Demir stated that the AESA radar would be deployed first in a UAV and then on manned platforms.
Demir stated that “the work performed will also be the basis for the National Combat Aircraft”; “Of course, the work done at this stage also constitutes the miles of our TF journey. We did not start TF studies from scratch. All these studies are part of that work. We will be using all kinds of capabilities we have gained here, one step further, in TF. Starting from the earlier blocks(Blok-30TM, Blok 40M, Blok 50M and Blok 50+), this application will be implemented now. Step by step, our F-16s will continue to serve our Air Force with much more advanced capabilities and modernised.”
