Few quotes in Turkish aviation history are as famous -or as misunderstood- as that of General Zeki Doğan, Commander of the Turkish Air Force in the late 1940s. As Şükrü Er notes in his book Teşebbüs Hürriyeti, Doğan made this statement shortly after the establishment of the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK) Gazi Engine Factory -a time when Türkiye had just begun to produce its own engines. His words therefore carried more than economic meaning; they revealed a turning point where foreign aid began to overshadow domestic industrial ambition:

''I cannot place an order with you, because the Americans are giving us aircraft engines for free. People would hang me for that!'' 

At first glance, it sounds like a simple justification. But behind these words lies a deep transformation in Türkiye's industrial mindset. Doğan’s remark marks the turning point between the early Republic’s vision of independence through production and the Cold War’s new logic of security through alliance.

In the 1920s and 1930s, aviation was not just a military ambition; it was the symbol of modernization and national pride. The first factories TOMTAŞ (1925), later on Kayseri Aircraft Factory (from 1931), the THK Etimesgut Aircraft Factory in the 1940s and Vecihi Hürkuş and Nuri Demirağ’s private initiatives in Istanbul were driven by the dream of building Türkiye's own aircraft. Yet they all suffered from the same issues: limited budget and technical expertise, lack of trained engineers, and almost no R&D infrastructure.

Until 1941, Türkiye had no school capable of training aircraft engineers. There were no wind tunnels, engine test centers, or proper material laboratories. Most aircraft were short-range, wooden, fabric-covered models and many of them simplified copies of European designs. The state lacked mechanisms to evaluate technical performance; what was often celebrated as ''domestic production'' in Ankara was, in practice, a handful of barely flightworthy prototypes.

The first formal attempt to train aeronautical engineers came with the establishment of an aviation branch at the Istanbul Engineering School (Mühendis Mektebi, today Istanbul Technical University). However, the program could only graduate its first class in 1943 and there were just six of them. Most of the instructors at the time were Polish specialists who had taken refuge in Türkiye during World War II, bringing valuable but limited experience. This late and limited start clearly shows how Türkiye’s industrial ambitions had outpaced its educational and technical capacity. In short, the country could assemble airplanes, but it could not yet truly engineer them.

After World War II, the global order changed dramatically. With the Truman Doctrine (1947) and Marshall Plan (1948), the United States positioned Türkiye as a frontline ally against Soviet expansion. The aid packages included not just funds, but modern aircraft, engines, and full maintenance support. The arrival of jet fighters like the P-47, F-84 and T-33 opened a new era.

For Türkiye, producing equivalent aircraft domestically was nearly impossible: the economy was fragile, foreign exchange reserves almost nonexistent, and the engineering base underdeveloped. Faced with this reality, General Zeki Doğan had one clear mission: modernizing the Air Force. His options were limited: on one side, outdated piston-engine planes built with local means; on the other, brand-new jet fighters offered for free by a strategic ally. His choice was not ideological; it was inevitable.

When Doğan said ''the nation would hang me'', he was not speaking from fear, but from realism. His statement reflected three layers of truth:

• Economic reality: Türkiye lacked the capital and scale to sustain an aircraft industry.

• Military reality: Rejecting modern jets would have left the country far behind regional competitors like Greece, which was also receiving U.S. aid.

• Political reality: In the new multi-party environment, turning down American assistance could easily have been branded ''anti-Western''.

Doğan stood at the intersection of these pressures. His acceptance of American aid ensured short-term modernization, but it also shaped the long-term structure of Turkish defense industry.

The decision was rational, but it came with a cost. Türkiye quickly aligned with NATO standards and established maintenance networks under American supervision. However, this also ended the momentum of domestic aircraft production. The Etimesgut Aircraft Factory was handed over to the Machinery and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE) and after NATO membership in 1952, U.S.-supplied aircraft made local designs irrelevant.

Zeki Doğan’s remark can be read in two ways. From a pragmatic perspective, he did what had to be done. From a historical one, it marks the moment when Türkiye's aviation ambitions shifted from independent production to dependent modernization. Both views are true. Doğan fulfilled his duty as a commander, but the state failed to turn necessity into an industrial strategy.

His famous quote reveals the subconscious of a nation standing between two eras. They remind us that modernization without industrialization always carries a price. The ''free airplanes'' came at the expense of local engineering. Türkiye's greatest missed opportunity was not accepting U.S. aircraft; it was failing to learn from them, to reverse-engineer and to build upon that technology for its own future.

Nearly eight decades have passed since Zeki Doğan’s words were spoken, yet discussions around that moment still lack a rational and realistic perspective. In popular culture, this statement is frequently misused, stripped of its historical depth and turned into a slogan. Such interpretations reflect how poorly Türkiye still understands its own industrial and engineering history.