Shipbucket

Good news for spain and Turkey.

http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.ph ... ew&id=1450

Turkey selects Navantia's Juan Carlos LHD design as winner of its LPD tender

Turkey's Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) just announced via press release that it selected Sedef shipyard as winner of its LPD tender and that final contract negotiations with this shipyard can now begin. Sedef shipyard in Turkey offers a design based on Juan Carlos LHD under the collaboration with Spain's Navantia.



Landing Platform Dock Project
According to SSM, the Landing Platform Dock Project (LPD)’s main purpose is the acqusition of one Landing Platform Dock in order to meet the operational requirements of Turkish Naval Forces. The scope of the procurement is for:
- 1 LPD and
- Four Landing Craft Mechanics (LCM)
- Twenty seven Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV),
- Two Landing Craft Personnel Vehicles (LCVP),
- One Commander Boat
- One RHIB (Rubber Hull Inflated Boat) will be acquired

One of the requirement was for a Privately Owned Turkish Shipyard to be main contractor, also responsible for design, construction, integration and tests and final performance.

The other proposals which were rejected were:
RMK Marine Shipyard offering its own indigenous design and Desan shipyard offering a design based on South Korea's Dokdo class. At the early stage of the tender a Chinese company submitted its design proposal but then backed away.

Juan Carlos class LHD
The multi-purpose Strategic Projection Ship "Juan Carlos I" is the largest naval unit ever built in Spain. Her NATO denomination is LHD (Landing Helicopter Dock). In June 2007, Australia announced it would purchase and build two ships of the same design to become the Canberra-class landing helicopter docks.

The ship has been designed for 4 mission profiles:
- Amphibious ship transporting a Marine Corps Force for landings and land support operations.
- Force projection ship transporting Army forces to any theatre of operations.
- Aircraft-carrier
- Non-combatant operations: humanitarian aid, evacuation from crisis zones and hospital-ship in catastrophe areas.

The crew consists of 261 people: 30 officers, 49 NCOs, 59 leading seamen and 123 ratings.

I assume Turkey would add the F-35B to their F-35 order, to give the ships a good airwing.

And receive planes in 2029 ? Not a good idea.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

It's not like there's any alternatives out there.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

The alternative is to not buy another highly overpriced plane that maybe work or maybe not but stay with classic helo component. I don't see the need of true aircraft carrier for Turkey, all the seas they are interested are in range of land based planes.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

At this point there's no question that the F-35 will work and the latest schedules puts the first production aircraft into service in late 2015, not 2029. Exactly how fast production is going to be remains up for grabs but I'd be surprised if Turkey couldn't get them before 2020.
As for overpriced, again there's nothing to compare the B version to so it's hard to say. It's true that it has turned out to be a lot more costly than expected, but that has more to do with optimistic budgeting than anything else.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

If we look about all delays and "speed" of production I would say that 2015 is very optimistic version and Turkey would receive first B's in 2025 if, they will buy them.

But Lockheed will do anything to sell it because they need that money to sustain whole F-35 project, they butchered all R&D projects of Marines, many of Navy and Air Force also, most of ally nations that buy this damn plane are cut everything in armed forces to just pay of them. The F-35 will not die, and company with high US command will do anything, ANYTHING to get that forsaken project alive.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

IS F35...B more expensive than F22 Raptor.

Its hard to tell since the F-22 is out of production, but not considering inflation the F-35Bs 2012 estimated cost is just under 200 million US dollars while the F-22's fly away cost in 2009 was about 150 million US dollars. The Prices are from different years so its not a completely accurate comparison but it gives you an idea of the F-35's huge costs.
That said no one is being forced to buy the plane even if it means keeping one's relations with the US bright and sunny, its the countries' choices to purchase the F-35.
The US needs to keep it afloat because they have no other options to replace its F-18s and F-16s that is American produced. They can't just keep on making new F-16 and F-18 versions.
Lastly the plane first flew in 2006 and is going to enter service by 2016 at the latest with the US Air Force, compared to the Gripen and Eurofighter who both took about 9 years between first flight and service entry, thats actually a decently well run program considering how advanced it is. The Rafale actually took about 15 years which would be equal to the time from the X-35's first flight to the F-35 entry into service.
I'm not saying this makes the price or delays or even the management justified, but in comparison to other recent Western fighter project its on par.

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Projects:
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References and feedback is always welcome!

Excellent choice by Turkey.They are really doing some impressive expansion projects.