Turkish-American traces in the F-35s
Even if Turkey has been removed from the F-35 program, the products of a Turkish-American engineer's products are still being used to manufacture the F-35s. Turkish engineer Ergün Kırlıkovalı, who settled in the US 43 years ago shared the details of his work on aircraft industry.
Ergün Kırlıkovalı, who settled in the U.S. 43 years ago, is someone who has made history as the sole Turkish engineer to manufacture the unique materials used by the US Naval Air Force. Kırlıkovalı, which can produce a coating as strong as steel and as flexible as polymer, has no competitors in the world.
Kırlıkovalı carried out his military service in the Navy following a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Boğaziçi University and a master's degree in polymer science at Manchester University. After a certain amount of work experience in Istanbul, he arrived in the US in 1978. He started working as a development chemist at a large company in San Francisco. He later continued in R&D activities in an aeronautics and astronautics company's laboratory to develop polymer-based materials to be used in place of metal in aircraft making.
"It had been going bad until the war between Russia and Ukraine started. However, we can say that Turkey's importance reached a peak for Russia and its opponents following Russia's attack and the universal sanctions from the U.S, Japan, and Australia. Of course, several problems, such as S-400s, F-35s, and YPG-PKK in North Syria, competition for the gas in the East Mediterranean, and so on, still have not been solved. Both sides have firm positions, and that has not changed much. I think that perhaps the war between Russia and Ukraine will dissolve these frozen conflicts and find a solution for them soon." Kırklıkovalı said.