First TMUHP Black Hawk for Turkish Gendarmerie, Gökbey to follow soon
The Turkish defence and aviation industries are running at full speed. With the first flight of the Bayraktar Kızılelma-A unmanned combat aircraft on 14 December 2022, the first pictures of the delivery of the first locally produced T-70 utility helicopter to the Gendarmerie have now surfaced.
This delivery took place on 13 December and looking at the serial number (J-5001) and the Jandarma tradition to derive the serial number from the manufacturer’s serial number (MSN) of the aircraft, we can safely assume that the MSN is 70-5001.
According to savunmasanayist.com, the Gendarmerie will also receive the first indigenously developed T625 Gökbey twin-engined light transport and utility helicopter before year’s end.
The Gökbey is developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI/TUSAŞ). So far, four prototypes of the Gökbey have been produced, of which TC-HLV sports the well-known red/blue/white Jandarma livery:
TAI has not been very transparent about the future clientele of the T625, but it is known that Gendarmerie Command was involved in the development, they want to replace their ageing AgustaBell 205 fleet with the Gökbey.
TAI has marketed the Gökbey to serve in the Military, Civil, Air Ambulance, VIP, and Search & Rescue roles.
The TUSAŞ "T-70 Turkish Multirole Utility Helicopter Project" (TMUHP or Genel Maksat Helikopteri/GHM) contract covers the production and delivery of 300 T-70 helicopters (109 firm orders and 191 options) to six Turkish military and government agencies:
The T-70s for the Gendarmerie Aviation Directorate (Türk Jandarma Havacılık Başkanlığı) are in the SAR/CSAR/Armed Reconnaissance/Utility Helicopter (ARH)/UH configurations. The Turkish Army Aviation Command (Türk Kara Havacılık Komutanlığı) will operate the UH/SAR version and the Aviation Department of the General Directorate of Security (Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü - Havacılık Daire Başkanlığı), operated by the National Police, will receive the UH version.
The T-70s for the General Directorate of Forestry (Orman Genel Müdürlüğü Havacılık) will be equipped for fire-fighting duties. The Turkish Air Force (Türk Hava Kuvvetleri) will receive the SAR/CSAR version and the Gölbaşı Command unit of the National Intelligence Agency/ Signal Intelligence Directorate (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı/ Sinyal İstihbarat Başkanlığı) will operate the ELINT/SIGINT version.
It has not been revealed yet what version will be operated by the Special Air Group Command (Özel Hava Grup Komutanlığı), but Scramble Magazine assesses this will a regular utility version, with the equipment for night-time operations.
Photos via savunmasanayist.com and TUSAŞ