| The former TOMTAS aircraft plants were re-opened in 1932 as
Aircraft Factory Kayseri. With a staff of about 1000 persons employed, the factory manufactured aircraft with foreign licenses for the Turkish Air Force until 1942. At he beginning of World War II, the factory retired to mostly only maintenance activities, so that it had withdraw from the aircraft production gradually. The factory became the 2nd Air Supply and Maintenance Center in 1950 (2. Hava Ikmal ve Bakim Merkezi, 2.HIBM). In 1934 the president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK, decided to present the first Turkish manufactured Curtiss Fledgling 2 C1 training aircraft to Iran. According to the confirmed information from Iran, the aircraft was still in operation in December 1943. In order to be come self-sufficient and because of increasing, import requirements for gliders in Turkey, their domestic production was established. Therefore, one copy of each aircraft model procured from the USSR were divided, each part was measured, and technical drawings were made. Subsequently the aircrafts were copied. This practice of construction (
reverse engineering) was also used later by Nuri Demirag, by the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK) and by the Mechanical and Chemical Industries Corporation (MKEK). |
