Turkish Stars

Turkish Stars
Turkish Air Force aerobatic demonstration team
Active November 7, 1992
Country Turkey
Branch Turkish Air Force
Role Aerobatic demonstration Team
Size 10 Pilots, 7 Public affairs, 11 Maintenance personnel
Garrison/HQ Konya Air Base
Motto A perfect harmony of skill, speed and discipline...
Colors Red, White
Aircraft flown
Fighter 10 NF-5A Freedom Fighter
2 NF-5B Freedom Fighter
Transport 1 C-130
1 C-160
1 CN-235

The Turkish Stars (Turkish: Türk Yıldızları) are the aerobatic demonstration team of the Turkish Air Force and the national aerobatics team of Turkey.

The team was formed on November 7, 1992 and was named the Turkish Stars on January 11, 1993.[1]

Turkish Stars fly with eight Canadair NF-5 fighter planes obtained from the Royal Netherlands Air Force,[2] making them the only aerobatics team with formations of eight supersonic aircraft and one of few national aerobatics teams to fly supersonic aircraft. Twelve NF-5 fighter planes are available to the team. The team uses CN-235, C-130 and C-160 support aircraft in Turkish Stars colours. The team is stationed at the Konya Air Base of 3rd Main Jet Base Group Command.

On August 24, 2001, Turkish Stars demonstrated an airshow to more than one million people in Baku, Azerbaijan that is to be a world record.[3]

Incidents

On 13 March 2012, one of the team's NF-5 fighter planes crashed during a training session in Konya Province 2 km (1.2 mi) from the airbase where the team is stationed. Pilot Flight lieutenant Ümit Özer, who had joined the Turkish Stars shortly before, died in the crash.[4]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. http://www.turkyildizlari.tsk.tr/TR/index.aspx
  2. Hv. K. K. Mebs (19 May 2011). "About the NF-5 Aircraft – Türk Yıldızları". Turkyildizlari.tsk.tr. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  3. http://www.turkyildizlari.tsk.tr/TR/IcerikDetay.aspx?ID=16
  4. Yıldız, Mehmet Kayhan % Hasan Dönmez & Hakan Kaya (2012-03-13). "Uçak düştükten hemen sonra çekildi". Hürriyet (in Turkish). Retrieved 2012-03-13.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Turkish Stars.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, November 24, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.