Click to see full-size image. Via @RTErdogan on X.
Turkey’s KAAN, its first national fighter jet, completed its first flight on February 21, part of the country’s efforts to upgrade its air force and curb external dependency.
The fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, which was developed by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), took off from an air base in north Ankara. Temel Kotil, the head of TAI, said KAAN stayed in the air for 13 minutes and reached a speed of 230 knots at an altitude of 8,000 feet.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the flight marked another “critical threshold” in the development of the KAAN.
“We experienced one of the proud days of the Turkish defense industry. Our homegrown combat aircraft, KAAN, successfully completed its first flight today. Turkey crossed another critical threshold in producing a fifth-generation fighter jet,” Erdoğan told an event in the western Afyonkarahisar province.
He added that Turkey’s homegrown fighter jet soared into the skies despite “those who dismissively compared parts of it to a radiator” and those trying to “sabotage” the project.
Turkey launched its TF-X project to produce a national fighter jet in 2016. TAI signed a deal with Britain’s BAE Systems worth $125 million in 2017 to develop the fifth-generation aircraft.
The first prototype of the KAAN performed taxi and ground tests on 16 March 2023 and was ceremonially rolled out two days later.
The KAAN will reportedly be capable of air-to-air combat with advanced weapons and precision strikes from internal weapon mounts at supersonic speed and will provide increased combat power with artificial intelligence and neural network support.
The fighter jet will initially be powered by two American-made General Electric F-110 engines. However, Turkey aims to use domestically produced engines in the production model.
The KAAN sought to replace the aging F-16 fleet in the inventory of the Turkish Air Force, which is planned to be phased out starting in the 2030s.
Last year, Kotil said that TAI expects to deliver twenty KAAN fighter jets to the air force in 2028, then two aircraft per month by 2029. However, he warned that the price tag of the aircraft may surpass his 2021 promise of $100 million per unit.
The KAAN is without a doubt Turkey’s most ambitious project to date. While the country has already made some serious breakthroughs in the development of the fighter jet, the project is still far from being over. Even countries with decades-long experience in aerospace engineering like the United States and Russia took a long time to resolve issues related to the development of fifth-generation fighter jets.
it’s a leap forward however depending on the uk and other foreign companies for its avionics systems is not ideally a wise decision, they will still have the leverage on the supply chain in order to produce this aircraft amass.
small steps forward, replacing foreign parts with domestically produced ones is next.
noobs when compared to russian engineers.
it is big, but it flies.
looks suspiciously like an f35…
don’t modern cars look suspiciously like each other? don’t mobile phones?
the kaan looks nothing like a f35. which is single engine, single tail. it is more similar to the f22 raptor. but not an exact copy.
the f35 has two vertical fins. the f35 was a cheap f22, with only one engine. the f22 was too expensive to produce. and of course, computers desgn planes now not artists, so they tend to look similar for similar purposes.
the undercarriage was visible/exposed/non-retractable throughout the flight !
…. and they call it a “stealth” fighter. …. and why does it look so familiar ? which jet did they copy ?
the su-57 comes to mind.
first test flights generally do fly with the undercarriage down.
there’s guys in garden sheds building plains . the prof is in the pooding when its up against out fighters. like everything else from the turks . id imagine its just a cheap copy.
good enough to fight nato crap.
…well, if the erdos are as successful with the thing as they are with the bayraktars, turkey could win a war against the eskimos.
the only ones they are willing to fight is another nato member, the poor greece.
the pakistan aeronautical complex has been an important collaborator in this project. earlier this year, the pakistan airforce, announced its interest in acquiring the chinese j-31 grylfalcon.
also, tai tf kaan induction will take time, but this is an important achievement nonetheless. don’t forget that turkey did got what they want (the f-16 + upgrades and etc).
btw, pakistan aeronautical complex has signed the biggest-ever export deal in pakistan’s history with the azeri air force.
the deal for jf-17c block-iii is signed for 1.6 billion usd which includes jets, training and munition.
turkey relying on britain hahahaha. british back stabbers who will backdoor the project and hand the keys to turkish adversaries…that’s how the brits roll in case you havent figured them out by now
the bayraktar was hailed as drone of drones in the war against armenia. however when supplied in huge numbers to ukraine in the summer of 2022 it only provided target practice for the rf aerospace forces. and, before autumn replaced summer had been removed completely from the aerial combat environment.
however russia could use them if they are for free, as russia has the air superiority and ew dominance… instead of scraping the rest, they should give them to russia as a gesture of good will.
a good step forward to more independence from us and nato, cause the us kicked the turks out of the f35 program, so now they try to build theyr own kinda f35 type. but a big mistake for the turks to cooperate with the monkey island traitors and backstabbers. they should better cooperate with russia and china in such programs, with the final goal to leave nato and step into brics.
outch! watch the elevator movements at the moment of rotation… i guess fly by wire needs some serious adjustments.
turkey’s “national” jet fighter produced by the british bae systems
great name you got there! maybe turk= shitty rat as well.
all the turko-mongol roaches who have delusions of being an “independent” nation and not nato’s lap dog need to explain why the british are perfectly fine in producing military equipment for turkey and not fearing that equipment ever being used against nato in the future?
ssome way to go….
looks like a radiator
ahahahaha! what the heck did you expected from untermensch pigs? i only wxpect from the some biological waste and some more of that.
what a load of bull. they can’t even make decent car, not to mention 5th. generation fighter jets. what a nasty sort these turks are anyways.
well done turkey. the first step has been accomplished your engineers and the test pilot have shown she can fly.