85878 - Transcription: The structural error of the Turkish aircraft carrier
N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athina Kehagias
Those who try to stigmatize Turkey’s aircraft carrier and in fact the next two orders, it is wise to observe the matter a little more technically. It is more regarding a helicopter carrier, and not so an aircraft carrier. But we ought to understand this: it is not the vessel that is at fault, it is actually the usage of it. Because we have to understand that this Turkish aircraft carrier, as the Turks refer to it, is actually merely the analogue of another aircraft carrier which is the Juan Carlos I, this is the class of it and this was created in honor of the king, as we understand from its name. But we ought to understand that this aircraft carrier is not only a helicopter carrier, like let’s say a French one which is the Mistral class. What is that? It has planes, it just has planes that can take off very quickly, that is, it has Harriers which are the oldest, but of course it could also use F-35Bs. This means that when we criticize a war vessel, we should not look at whether it is massive, whether it moves slowly, whether it has something or doesn’t have the other or doesn’t have . . It’s whether its usage happens in the manner that it did when there was an original model. Therefore, since the F-35s froze for Turkey and they don’t have access to the Harrier, we in fact understand that an aircraft carrier of this size can only carry helicopters. It’s in fact simply a matter of terminology, but what matters is that it certainly doesn’t have the same capacity, because what matters about an aircraft carrier is being able to carry planes to any point it wants, and then for them to strike with a long range. .If it’s merely regarding helicopters, things are along a different range. Consequently, in actual fact, the real criticism that ought to be directed against Turkey’s decision to obtain these aircraft carriers, as we said, is that she cannot support them with planes that are compatible to this class and merely places them alongside helicopters. This is the essence of the matter.