ANKARA - Sikorsky helicopters' producer United Technologies (UTC) Director General for Turkey Stuart V. Brown announced on Wednesday that they were planning to make Turkey be the main production and exports center of Black Hawk helicopters and with this objective, they had brought joint production proposal to the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).
Speaking to the A.A correspondent, Stuart V.Brown said that talks between the UTC's Sikorsky Group and the TAI on joint production and exportation of Black Hawks had started last month.
Noting that joint production with the TAI would be made in four phases, Brown said that assembling and production of Black Hawk's all parts would reach feasible level at the end of the fourth phase which was expected to be completed within eighteen months or two years. Brown said that production would cover models of general service, transportation, search and rescue, VIP transportation, fight against forest fire and assault.
He said that talks between TAI and Sikorsky would resume in February and they hoped those talks would end positively until end of March.
Stressing that helicopters would be exported to whole world via Turkey, Brown said that they targeted exportation of twenty or forty helicopters a year.
Brown added that as an allied country, they wanted Turkey have a powerful army in the region.
(MS-AÖ) 08.01.2004