UKU

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ÜKÜ
UKU.PNG
Type State company
Slogan Strength through Unity
Founded 1963
Location Karmana, Turkestan
Key people CEO
Employees ?
Industry Aerospace
Products Military aeroplanes
Revenue ?

The Uzbekistan Arms Company, or UKU (ÜKÜ) is the premier manufacturer of military aircraft in Turkestan. Ükü is the Turkic word for "owl", hence the company logo.

History

UKU was founded in 1963 by the industrialist and engineer Hamra Tomar-ulı Bey. Initially his company merely license-built LaGG aeroplanes, but the firm later branched out into R&D, designing and conducting flight tests on their own aircraft.

Foundation

As one on the leading industrialists of Turkestan, who had made his money in the creation of the Buxara and Almalıq tramway networks, Hamra Bey was a natural choice for the Government of National Unity when they received permission to license-build Russian aeroplanes of the LaGG and Yankov design bureaux. Hamra Bey was asked by the EBÜK regime to oversee the new industrial enterprise as a matter of state security and national pride, and one did not refuse the "suggestions" of the Snorist governing body of the National Union of Turkestan, controlling as it did the massive Department of Homeland Security security organ.

However, Hamra Bey was apparently happy enough to branch out into a whole new industry, though undoubtedly a little nervous about creating a product of such obvious importance to the Snorist government. He established a new state company and, because at that point the EBÜK regime was still wishing to emphasise the six Provinces created twelve years previously, he named it the Uzbekistan Arms Company.

Expansion and Development

The name of the engineer who drafted the first T-1 Bürküt design is sadly lost to us, but history records that he came to Hamra Bey in 1971 with an upgraded design of the then top-of-the-range LaGG-120 fighter, involving improvements to the wings and tail section that reduced drag and gave increased agility and better handling qualities. This upgrade redesign sat on the shelf for two years while Hamra Bey pondered the political implications of implying that a top Russian aeroplane was less than the best. However, when LaGG introduced an upgraded engine for the LaGG-120 in 1973 and this filtered down to the UKU aircraft company, Hamra Bey made his decision to incorporate the revised wings and tail section into a derivative, but new, Turkestani-designed aeroplane, the T-1 Bürküt.

Things might have gone amiss for him then, but the death of Jalan Quyrat-ulı and succession to the Ilxanate of Mızar Aman Beğ-ulı worked in his favour. Jalan Ilxan would probably have taken the implied slight on a top Russian design firm personally, but Mızar Ilxan decided that the Turkestani Air Force should have the best aircraft it could, regardless or whether that design was Russian, Turkestani, Oltenian or Venedic.

Post-EBÜK

Aircraft produced by UKU

T-1 Bürküt

T-3 Şuņğur

T-5 Çağaltaı

Chagaltai interceptor.PNG

The Çağaltaı ("Hobby") is perhaps the most successful and iconic of all the ÜKÜ aircraft. A propeller design, it is nevertheless fast and manoeuverable, with the ability to chase down even some of the world's slower jet fighters if it is in a dive. It is an aircraft beloved by its pilots, and might have been sold overseas but for CMAEC agreements with Russia about not exporting military hardware.

In performance, it is comparable to *here's British Typhoon fighter. Specifications given below are for the Mark IV version.

Engine: 1x Furaqan-2000 18-cylinder radial propeller engine
Length: 33'-6"
Wingspan: 42'-0"
Height: 13'-10"
Weight: 9,240 lb (Empty) 12,500 lb (Loaded)
Maximum Speed: 460 mph in level flight
Ceiling: 35,800'
Range: 700 miles
Crew: 1
Armament: 4x 20mm cannon, 2x underwing hardpoints

ZT-6Ü Yarğanat

ZT-7Ü Qıran

The Qıran was ÜKÜ's unsuccessful tender for the Turkestan Military's requirement for a fighter-bomber design, and was the earliest result of ÜKÜ design team Horşıd and Roşıd Iman-ulı's work on flying wing aircraft - a work that culminated in the T-9 Boran jet fighter.

T-8 Büktilgü

The T-8 Büktilgü ("Red-Footed Falcon" Falco vespertinus) is an advanced propeller fighter which was introduced in 1999 just prior to the deployment of the first jet fighters by Dalmatia and the Scandinavian Realm. It is a "tail-first" canard design with a single "pusher" engine, and is in many repects similar to the SR's original Dragen v1 propeller design that formed the basis of the acclaimed Dragen v2 jet fighter.

Building on the success of the T-5 Çağaltaı fighter, the ÜKÜ design bureau went on to develop this quite different design in response to an advanced interceptor requirement from the Turkestani Air Force. The T-8 is one of the last front-line propeller fighters to enter service, and has a number of advanced features, including the lightweight composite material used in its construction. Even so, it was rendered obsolete by the introduction of jets.

Few T-8s were ever built; their development was subject to cost-cutting force reductions in the post-Qaşgar War drawdown, and though the T-5s felt the brunt of this, the total number of T-8 Büktilgüs delivered fell drastically short of the expected number.

Engine: 1x Furaqan "Aydahar" 20-cylinder radial engine
Length: 36'-8"
Wingspan: 38'-8"
Height: 14'-8"
Weight: 7,060lb (Empty) 10,200lb (Loaded)
Max. Speed: 496mph in level flight
Ceiling: 35,600'
Range: 650mi
Crew: 1
Armament: 3x 20mm espingol cannon, 1x underwing hardpoints

T-9 Boran

The T-9 Boran ("Blizzard") is Turkestan's first fully domestically-designed and produced jet fighter.

Engine: 2x Äşinä R17 axial-flow turbojet engines developing 1150 lb thrust each
Wing-span: 28'-0"
Length: 14'-0"
Height: 7'-0"
Weight: Empty 5840 lb / Loaded 8669 lb
Maximum Speed: 547 mph in level flight
Ceiling: 40,000'
Range: 993 miles (internal fuel), 1360 miles (with drop tanks)
Crew: 1
Armament: 4x 20 mm espingol cannons, 4x underwing hardpoints

ZT-10Ü Kormoran

The ZT-10Ü Kormoran ("Cormorant") was UKU's proposal for a jet-powered flying boat to serve with the Turkestan Guards. The rival company Märgän Arms' ZT-10M Subürküt ("Sea Eagle") won the contract, but the project has been put on hold due to budgetary constraints.

ZT-11 Davul

T-11 Davul.PNG

The ZT-11 (the Z of a test/research plane is expected to be dropped in 2009) is currently in development to replace the piston-engined T-8 Büktilgü. It is expected to initially see service alongside the Russian Yan-22 Orel jet interceptor, and later as production ramps up, to replace it in the point-defence interceptor role. The plane has been designated the Davul, or "Thunderstorm" interceptor; commentators predict that it will probably get nicknamed the "Devil" abroad.