MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

AEE 300: SUMMER PRACTICE II

REPORT

Mehmet Necati Aydın — Student ID: 2449213

Company: Turkish Aerospace Industries, Ankara/Turkey
Date: 25 August 2023 – 22 September 2023

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Table of Contents
INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY ............................................................................................... 3
Brief History ............................................................................................................................................ 3
Organizational Scheme ........................................................................................................................... 4
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 5
SUMMER PRACTICE ................................................................................................................................. 6
1st Week .................................................................................................................................................... 6
2nd Week ................................................................................................................................................... 7
3rd Week ................................................................................................................................................... 8
4th Week .................................................................................................................................................... 9
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 10
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................................. 11

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 INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is an aerospace and defense company located

at Kahramankazan/Ankara. The mission of the company is to design and produce
aerospace systems for serving strategical aims and defense of Turkey and its
partners. The company has a wide range of projects and operations in numerous
classifications of military and civil aircraft. This includes training airplanes, cargo
airplanes, fighter jets, attack helicopters, transport/utility helicopters, UAVs, and
UCAVs. Moreover, the company emphasizes on manufacturing strategic parts and
materials for these aircraft in an attempt to be independent from other companies
and countries. It also gives great importance to security and secrecy because of its
products’ strategical role in defense of Turkey.
Ongoing new aircraft projects of TAI :
▪ TF KAAN (5th generation stealth fighter jet)
▪ Hürjet (supersonic advanced trainer and light combat aircraft)
▪ Hurkuş (turboprop engine basic trainer aircraft)
▪ T929 ATAK 2 (heavy attack helicopter)
▪ T625 Gökbey (light transport/utility helicopter)
▪ Aksungur (long wingspan UCAV)
▪ Anka 3 (stealth UCAV)

Brief History

TUSAŞ (Türk Uçak Sanayii Anonim Ortaklığı) is founded on 28 June 1973 by

Ministry of Industry and Technology in an attempt to reduce Turkey’s dependence
of aerospace systems on other countries.
After the decision that predicts F-16 fighters will be used in Turkish Air Force,
with the partner companies in US, TAI (TUSAŞ Aerospace Industries) was
founded (for a period of 25 years) in 1984. The aim of this company was the
assembly, integration of on-board systems and making flight tests of F-16 fighter
jets for Turkish Air Force.

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In 2005, the stocks of international partners of TAI were purchased by Turkish
stockholders and TUSAŞ and TAI were merged into a single company under the
name of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI). Moreover, the mission of the new
company was broadened to development, modernization, manufacturing, system
integration and life-cycle support of aerospace systems.
Since 2005, here are the projects that developed or co-developed by TAI .
▪ Göktürk 2 ( earth observation satellite, in service since 2012) (co-built)
▪ Anka (UCAV, in service since 2013)
▪ T129 Atak (attack helicopter, in service since 2014) (co-developed)
▪ Göktürk 1 (earth observation satellite, in service since 2016) (co-developed)
▪ Aksungur (UCAV, in service since 2021)
▪ T70 (light transport/utility helicopter, in service since 2022) (co-developed)
▪ Hürkuş (basic trainer aircraft, ongoing acceptance test for service)

Organizational Scheme

The organizational scheme of TAI consists of the board of directors,

CEO/president, and vice presidents for different product fields and different duties
of the company. Currently, there are 15,300 employees working in the company.
The statistics of the positions of these employees and the exact organization table
are provided in the Appendix.
Here is the list of product groups in TAI:
▪ Aviation Structural Group
▪ Aircraft Group
▪ Helicopter Group
▪ Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Group
▪ Space Systems Group
▪ National Combat Aircraft (NCA) Group
▪ Engineering Group

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 INTRODUCTION

The main objective of Summer Practice II course is “to introduce students to

practical applications in aerospace engineering, and to expose them to real
engineering working environment to get hands-on experiences” as stated at the
department’s website.
This statement in mind, in March 2023, I applied to Sky Discover program (via
https://vizyonergenc.com/) of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) which is a
summer internship program that allows university students to work for 20 days at
TAI’s gigantic facility in Kahramankazan/Ankara. The facility’s open surface area
is 4 million 𝑚2 and closed surface area is 711 thousand 𝑚2 .
The reason for applying TAI was that it was, and still is, the leading aerospace
defense company in Turkey which has number of new and ambitious aircraft
projects that being designed, manufactured, and tested, all in one facility. The
company currently develops numerous and various kinds of military aircraft. The
most important ones are 5th generation fighter jet, training and light combat
aircraft, heavy attack helicopter, light and heavy transport helicopters and so on.
Seeing all these projects, I decided that TAI was the best place to experience new
aeronautical technologies as well as various kinds and steps of manufacturing
which is the main objective of Summer Practice II.
I was accepted to Sky Experience program for the period 25 August – 22
September. On 25 August Friday, we had an online orientation in which people
from HR department told us all the necessary information for us to be able to work
at the facility. As expected from a defense company, they warned us not to take any
photos and not to enter buildings or rooms that we are not supposed to enter. For
this reason, I will not be able to add any photos from the facility.

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 SUMMER PRACTICE

1st Week

On the first day of work, all the interns were gathered in the conference room and
the necessary documents for the internship, namely police record and insurance
document, were collected from the interns. After this process, we received our
employee cards, and we were assigned to our departments (buildings or rooms)
where we will work for the internship period.
I was assigned to Hürjet Empennage Montage building. This building has two
sections to carry out its two main objectives. The first section is where the montage
of the control surfaces of the plane like rudder, horizontal and vertical stabilizers,
leading edge slats and flaperons are done. The montage of the canopy is also
performed at this section. On the other hand, the second section is responsible for
sub-assembly that is the assembly of small components that are part of various
sections of the airplane.
In the building there were one chief engineer who is responsible for the whole
building and the operations that is carried out; three manufacturing engineers
whose tasks are supervising the assembly/montage processes and solving the
possible problems that can arise; two chief technicians whose duty is to assign the
tasks to technicians and to control the quality of the work of technicians; and
finally 30 technicians who are responsible for actually carrying out the operations.
On the first day they told us that we, me, and my fellow intern friend, were not
supposed to do any work and our only job was to observe the operations and try to
learn the details and how they are done. They also warned us not to take any
photos because it could leak and expose some critical information about the planes
that should remain secret. Throughout the time I stayed at that building, the
engineers also assigned us some research homework.
Throughout the first week, we observed various assembly processes. From the
reception of work orders to submission of the components. We learned about the
tools that technicians use like carbide reamers, we also learned about rivets, nut
plates and sealants; why they are used and what are they good for.

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2nd Week

In the first days of the second week, we have spent most of our time in the sub-
assembly and continued to learn about fasteners, sealants, dyes, and chemical
catalysators. The fasteners are used to mechanically join two objects, either
permanently or non-permanently. One example for permanent fasteners can be
rivets and one example for non-permanent ones can be screws. Sealants are used
for blocking the leakage of fluids through small openings. As I observed in sub-
assembly section, sealants are mostly applied to rivets and the surface that it will
be in contact with. The sealants are very important especially in aerospace
applications since the leakage of fluids can cause serious problems, such as
corrosion and eventual failure of some components. With this in mind, the
application of sealants is done meticulously, and the quality control personnel is
very strict about it. Finally, dyes and chemical catalysators are applied at the last
stage of the assembly process. Reading the instructions for these are so important
since there are many kinds of them and most of them have various requirements in
terms of way of application, waiting time, and safety measurements.
One important thing about fasteners, sealants, dyes, and chemical catalysators is
that they are standardized. There are various standardizations like NAS (National
Aerospace Standards), MS (Military Standards), EU (European Standards). In the
building, the most commonly used rivets have either NAS or MS standards. The
importance of these standardizations is that it allows components to be replaceable
and it makes maintenance and repair of aircrafts so much easier.
In the second week, one of the canopies that is assembled in the building is taken
for a canopy bird test and after the test we were allowed to see the tested canopy.
The canopy bird test is a test where it is thrown a ballistic gel simulating a bird at
near sonic speeds onto the canopy glass to see if it will fail in case of a collision at
high speeds in a real flight. If it fails, after the collision, the analysts examine the
broken glass and failed canopy structure to write a report for designers to develop
their design.

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3rd Week

On the last days of the second week, I decided to change my department due to
some conflicts with engineers in my previous department. On the first day of the
3rd week, I continued my internship in “T129 Atak Ground Tests” section in
building 910. It is a huge building for assembly and tests for various helicopters
like T129 Atak, T70, and Gökbey. There was also a section for gear manufacturing
which produces gears for MGB (Main Gear Box) and TGB (Tail Gear Box) for
Atak 2 that is in development.
On the first two days, one of the technicians that work in our section informed me
about T-129 Atak and how the tests are conducted at this section. He also showed
me ATA (Air Transport Association) chapters, flight and maintenance manuals of
Atak. However, unfortunately, there was no helicopter on the testing line at the
moment, and I could not be able to see how the tests are actually conducted. Most
of the time, I read the manuals and asked questions to better understand.
On Wednesday, the chief engineer of our section (our mentor), due to momentary
lack of action in the section, assigned us for the rest of the week to building 911
where static and fatigue tests of helicopters are done. Fortunately, at that time,
static test set up for the only prototype of TF KAAN was being installed. We were
lucky for being able to see the first prototype of Turkey’s first 5th gen. fighter jet.
Static tests are mechanical tests in which some components or the whole aircraft
are subjected to loads similar to loads that occur during flight due to combination
of weight, thrust, and aerodynamic forces. The aim of the static tests are to
simulate the forces on aircraft or components and see if the measured strains are
within the allowable tolerance or if they fail unforeseeably. This is a crucial test for
seeing aircraft’s structural competence before flight.
The set up for the test was as follows: Only the body and wings of the aircraft were
assembled, and it was mechanically supported at its landing gear sections and lifted
to a height of about 4 meters. Using cradles wings are sandwiched at various cross-
sections along the span. Linking hydraulic servo motor pistons to the cradles,
forces can be applied to the cross-sections sensitively. Using this approach, the
aerodynamic load distribution to wings can be simulated approximately by
assigning forces to each piston accordingly (fig.3). There are also placed two servo
pistons to two motor bays to simulate the effect of thrust forces of motors.

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4th Week

On the first day of the 4th week, we came back from the static test building to
building 910. However, the Atak ground test line was still empty, so our mentor
directed us to T70 ground test line.
There was an intern student there already, so he told us what kind of ground tests
are conducted and how they are conducted. Most of the ground tests are testing of
avionic systems of the aircraft. Some examples to these tests can be DCU (Data
Concentrator Unit) test, continuity test, EGI (Embedded GPS INS) test, etc.
On Wednesday, our mentor took us on a tour to the gear manufacturing section of
our building. In that section, there were very expensive and strategic machines that
produce these gears with so small tolerances. Small tolerances are key for
producing those gears because they can reach thousands of rpm’s and even a small
scratch can cause huge problems.
The next day, we went to design and analysis building for Gökbey. The team that
we are assigned was responsible for the front-top region of the helicopter and they
were currently working on the opening mechanism of it. They use CATIA for
design of Gökbey.
On the last day of work, as of my mentor’s wish, I gave a presentation for chief
engineers about the design of Atak’s horizontal stabilizer. The subject of the
presentation is originated to my question for the mentor about why the horizontal
stabilizer is designed as an upside down airfoil shape that produces lift downwards.

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 CONCLUSION

Seeing the facilities and meeting with people that design and manufacture high
technology military aircraft has been my dream since childhood. This summer
practice gave me the chance to do so. Throughout my time there, I was able to see
various design, manufacturing and testing processes and meet lots of people that I
can ask questions and actually get answers. I think this made it a great experience
that not every intern student can get. On the other hand, I could not spend enough
time in each department or section to fully grasp the depth and every detail of what
they do. However, I feel like exploring and having rough idea of what each
department and section is doing is more important for students to decide what they
would like to do in future. In this regard, I am very satisfied with my time there. It
was an experience that I cannot forget.

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 APPENDIX

Figure 1: Organizational Scheme

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Figure 2: Employee Position Distribution

Figure 3: Static Test for Wing Illustration

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