The Bourget Air Show

White, black and yellow men and women with very serious looks on their faces. Men in air force uniforms from many countries.

Men and women of industry and an army of public relations experts trying to promote products of the industry.

Top company executives meeting over lunch and dinner with top government executives in bid to convince them, "If you want peace, be prepared for war. É With our chopper, fighter, missile or whatever you will earn precious deterrence that will guard your security."

And, journalists from all over the world in "action outfits," most of them defense industry experts, some of them embedded in the teams of defense industry companies.

This is show business but very serious show business. All these people have flocked to Paris for the past many days for the 48th International Air Show at le Bourget, one of the biggest air shows of the world. Paris hotels, as well as hotels in suburban towns, are all fully booked, and though it might be no news for Istanbulites who are fighting with traffic every day, due to increased traffic because of the air show, the already unbearable traffic in this one of the most beautiful cities of the world has come to an almost standstill.

Thus, being so close to Paris and not being able to stroll in the beautiful city for some time Ğ except a dinner at the famous Fointaine Gaillon restaurant owned by a living cinema industry legend Gerard Depardiou Ğ was itself a manifestation of the success of the air show that attracted over 600 leading defense industry and avionics companies and several thousands of "decision maker" or "industrialists" guests, apart an army of journalists.

Choppers, fighters

As for Turkey, it was unfortunate not to see any senior Defense Ministry executives or Air Force generals around, except Defense Industry Undersecretary Murad Bayar and his team, who on the sidelines of the air show met behind closed doors, for obvious reasons, with both the AugustaWestland and Sikorsky companies, ahead of the scheduled July 1 meeting of the high defense group under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

At that meeting, Turkey is expected to finally announce which of these two short-listed companies will be given the contract of the 109 "public sector general purpose helicopter" tender.

So far it appears that AugustaWestland, the company which already successfully continuing the attack helicopter program of the Turkish military, has the upper hand with its co-production in Turkey, know-how transfer pledge and third-country export permission, while Sikorsky, for obvious reasons, has the political upper hand besides the sympathy of some top generals of the Turkish military for American companies.

Indeed, that sympathy of some Air Force generals have so far prevented Turkey joining the Eurofighter program as the fifth partner, though if some programs are not undertaken without further delay, in the not so distant future, there apparently will be a serious air defense deficiency with the already 40-45-year-old F-4 phantom planes becoming obsolete. Turkey has so far agreed to be part of the Joint Strike Fighter program, but the JSF is a strike fighter, as is defined so, and will not meet Turkey’s probable gap in air-to-air defense systems.

Now, Turkey has yet another option to consider joining the Eurofighter program as the current partner countries and companies have started preparations for Tranch 3 program. What we hear lately indicates that Turkey has started developing some interest in the Eurofighter program, which like the copter deal with AugustaWestland and unlike some alternate offers, offers Turkey to be a partner in the project, technology transfer and production of some key components in Turkey. Besides, winning Italy as a strategic partner in Europe will best serve Turkey’s national interests while at the same time our country will eradicate a potential deficiency in its air defense systems.

Of course, though our prime minister still pretends as if the global crisis will pass Turkey tangentially, in this time of crisis, what to spend and where to spend must have been a very difficult decision to make.