The Turkish Air Force (Turkish: Türk Hava Kuvvetleri) is the aerial warfare service branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. The Turkish Air Force can trace its origins back to June 1911 when it was founded by the Ottoman Empire, however, the air force as it is known today did not come into existence until 1923 with the creation of the Republic of Turkey.
As of 2012 the Turkish Air Force ranks third in NATO in terms of fleet size behind the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force. According to the Flight International (Flightglobal.com) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Turkish Air Force has an active strength of 60,000 military personnel and operates around 700 manned aircraft.
Famous quotes containing the words turkish, air and/or force:
“A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered an extreme region beyond their normal personality, an area of social crime where gradations don’t count; unavailable to them are the instincts and taboos that booming extroverts, who know the territory of self-advancement far better, can rely on.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)