T929 ATAK-2

Turkey's Apache, waiting on an engine — the TAI T929 ATAK-2 is an eleven-tonne-class heavy attack helicopter, one of the largest ever built, flown in prototype form in April 2023 on Ukrainian Motor Sich turboshafts delivered late through a war zone. Conceived after US engine-export vetoes killed Turkey's T129 sale to Pakistan, the T929 is the sovereignty answer at gunship scale — and since mid-2025 it has been on hold, deprioritized for a utility helicopter Turkey needs sooner, with its return promised for 2028–29 and its indigenous engine still undisclosed hardware.

Overview

The T929 ATAK-2 is Turkish Aerospace Industries' bid to move from the medium-weight T129 ATAK class — an AgustaWestland A129 derivative whose American engines gave Washington veto power over exports — into the heavy class defined by the AH-64 Apache, which Turkey's SSB explicitly named as the benchmark in 2018. The airframe that flew on 28 April 2023 is big by any standard: contracted at 10 tonnes and grown to a stated 11.5–12 tonnes maximum weight, which would make it the world's second-heaviest attack helicopter after the Mi-28NE; TUSAŞ's chief test pilot calls it the longest. The design pairs a tandem cockpit with an all-national mission system — Meteksan's MİLDAR millimeter-wave radar, ASELFLIR-500 turret, indigenous EW suite with DIRCM — a 30×113 mm cannon, and six underwing stations for up to 24 CİRİT guided rockets, Roketsan's UMTAS anti-tank family (the data-linked UMTAS-GM reaching toward 25–40 km), air-to-air missiles or air-launched loitering munitions. Its prototypes fly on Ukrainian Motor Sich TV3-117 turboshafts — 14 engines contracted in 2021, with Motor Sich unable to promise more through the war — while the intended indigenous engine, TEI's ~3,000 shp TS3000, had no disclosed prototype as of May 2026. In July 2025 TAI confirmed the program was paused in favor of the T925 utility helicopter (about 60 percent common), with ATAK-2 "back on the agenda in the 2028–2029 band." No serial contract, no deliveries, no combat record: the T929 is a flying statement of intent whose critical path runs straight through an engine factory.

Development

The program began conceptually in August 2017 and was formalized when Turkey's SSB signed the development contract with TAI on 22 February 2019 — a heavy-class gunship "comparable to the AH-64 Apache," three prototypes plus a technical data package, with the maximum weight raised from eight to ten tonnes at signature, per Defence Turkey's definitive program history. The engine choice was the strategic decision: after US export licenses strangled the T129's 30-helicopter Pakistan sale, Turkey contracted Motor Sich in June 2021 for 14 TV3-117VMA-SBM1V turboshafts (~2,500 shp each) to power the first seven aircraft. Russia's full-scale invasion nearly severed that lifeline — the first two engines arrived four months late in January 2023, per Militarnyi — but the P0 prototype ran its engines that April and made its first flight on 28 April 2023 at Kahramankazan, a ten-minute hover captured in imagery analyzed by TWZ. Then the schedule dissolved: 2023 talk of first deliveries in 2025 went unmet, the second prototype's flight was never confirmed, and on 2 July 2025 TAI's CEO confirmed the ATAK-2 was on hold to prioritize the T925 ten-tonne utility helicopter (driven by Turkey's inability to buy more Sikorsky T-70s), with the gunship returning "in the 2028–2029 band… completed by 2030," per Türkiye Today (state-adjacent). As of mid-2026 the interim Ukrainian engines remain the only ones flying, and TEI's TS3000 remains undisclosed, per Quwa.

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