Up until today, METEKSAN Defence has been known for the services and sub-systems offered to platform manufacturers. Among the most prominent of these are damage control simulator, helicopter fire training simulator and MİLDAR radar. Now the company keeps working on its latest products, developed for higher goals to pursue export opportunities. In this vein, we discussed with President of METEKSAN Defence Tunç Batum about his views on IDEF’17, products and goals.
C4Defence: For METEKSAN, what kind of an experience was IDEF’17?
President of METEKSAN Defence Tunç Batum: We evaluate the pre-fair and post-fair period differently. Participation in IDEF has always been huge. Nevertheless, we were anxious lest interest would be low on account of the latest incidents at home and of world conjuncture. The enthusiastic crowd we saw in the first two days of the event demonstrated us that our fears had been baseless; because, the scope of participation was beyond our expectations. There were many delegates from abroad. We also noticed a slight change in delegate profile. Delegations from Europe and the United States were relatively rare as compared to those coming from Africa, the Middle East and the East. Despite this shift, we consider the fair in very positive terms considering the interest and fervour shown by visitors. Anyway, judging by the level that Turkish defence industry reached, it was expected to be a fair independent of everything as well as a spectacular show of force. And it was indeed the case, since we now have our own platforms. Furthermore, these platforms now equipped with national systems and sub-systems. Together with all these, the Turkish defence industry has proved itself as a global actor to reckon with. If we now focus particularly on METEKSAN Defence, it began as an R&D company. However, our strategy was totally based on translating design into products. We now regard this fair as an event of paramount significance, where we can demonstrate our designs and products for platforms to the industry.
