The man called Iron Web

Nuri Demirağ made his first fortune with a cigarette-paper factory in 1922, then invested in Turkey’s railways. When the Surname Law came in in 1934, Atatürk gave him the name Demirağ, meaning iron web. In 1936, among the richest men in the country, he set out to build aircraft, arguing that buying foreign licences only meant copying outdated designs, and that Turkey needed a new Turkish type of its own.

A factory on the Bosphorus

His factory in Beşiktaş, Istanbul, beside the present naval museum, employed 500 people. Engineer Selahattin Reşit Alan designed the Nu.D.36 two-seat trainer and the Nu.D.38 twin-engined light transport. Demirağ also bought land at Yeşilköy for an airfield and opened the Gök Okulu flying school, which trained 290 pilots by 1943. He also opened a Gök middle school in his home town of Divriği, paying pupils’ costs and bringing them to Istanbul for flying lessons, and in 1939 started Turkey’s first domestic parachute production.

One crash, one cancelled order

The Turkish Aeronautical Association ordered gliders and trainers, but during a delivery test flight Selahattin Reşit Alan crashed into a ditch beside the runway and was killed. The association cancelled the order, and a law barred the factory from exporting to Spain, Iran and Iraq. The Nu.D.38 first flew on 11 February 1944, but only one was built. Demirağ sued the association, but the case, first heard in October 1943, was rejected.

Fabrieken

• Beşiktaş factory · Beşiktaş, Istanbul — Aircraft factory with 500 staff; later nationalised
• Yeşilköy airfield · Yeşilköy, Istanbul — Flight test field and Gök Okulu school; later absorbed into the airport

Mensen

• Nuri Demirağ · founder — Industrialist, 1886–1957; founded the National Development Party in 1945
• Selahattin Reşit Alan · engineer — Designed the Nu.D.36 and Nu.D.38; killed in a test flight accident

Records en primeurs

• First private aircraft factory in Turkey