Last week, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAŞ) General Manager Mehmet Demiroğlu stated that the design work of the naval variant of TUSAŞ’s Hürjet trainer is underway.
“We have recently started work on a navalized version of Hürjet,” Demiroğlu said at the recent Turkish Naval Expo. “It is still too early to define exactly what the aircraft will look like. Operating conditions at sea are significantly more demanding than land-based operations, and the aircraft will also need a more powerful engine.”
Other Turkish media reporting also had Demiroğlu say that the work on the Naval Hürjet could, in effect, involve designing a new platform. “With the shaping of our aircraft carrier, the needs will also take shape. This (i.e., Naval Hürjet) is a long-term project. And I can already say that it will be a completely different platform from Hürjet. You will see that it will be different from Hürjet. Because the requirements are different.”
Interestingly, this author flagged as early as 2022 that the naval training requirement may lead to a new platform, stating how TUSAŞ “could potentially lead to another project, one for a heavier class of single-engine fighter that could efficiently operate from carriers.” In a way, the Naval Hürjet could be a significant jump from the current Hürjet, one along the lines of the leap the Gripen C made to the Gripen E, and the one the Tejas is undergoing via the Tejas Mk2. In other words, the resulting platform would be more than a navalized trainer; it could be an adept light-to-medium-weight fighter in its own right.
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