Turkey's 5th-generation fighter jet cracks the sky first

Turkey's indigenously developed fifth-generation fighter jet KAAN takes off for its inaugural flight, Ankara, Türkiye, Feb. 21, 2024. (Collected Photo)

Turkey's indigenously developed fighter jet completed its first flight as a part of the country's efforts to upgrade its air force and curb external dependency.

The warplane named KAAN took off in the early hours on Wednesday and stayed in the air briefly before returning to an air base in north Ankara, according to a video shared by its developer, the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).

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.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan boasted Turkish pride. 

"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.

Turks' steel wings in the sky!" Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The president added that Turkey's homegrown combat aircraft soared into the skies despite "those who dismissively compared parts of it to a radiator" and those trying to "sabotage" the project.

NATO member Turkey launched its TF-X project to produce a national combat aircraft in 2016. TAI signed a deal with Britain's BAE Systems worth $125 million in 2017 to develop the next-generation fighter jet.

Earlier, the engineers carried out KAAN's multiple tests like launch seat tests, full-length static tests, static tests of control surfaces, landing gear tests, avionic system tests, fuel tests, engine start up tests and taxiing tests.

Unveiled publicly last year, the jet is regarded as Turkey's most ambitious project to date. The warplane made a runway debut and completed its first taxi test after starting its engines for the first time in mid-March last year.

It is sought to replace the aging F-16 fleet in the inventory of the Air Forces Command, which is planned to be phased out starting in the 2030s.

The new fighter jet will initially be powered by two General Electric F-110 engines, which are also used on fourth-generation Lockheed Martin F-16 jets.

Turkey aims to use domestically produced engines, which are "almost ready," on KAAN in serial production, Görgün has said, with that expected to start in 2028.

It will be capable of air-to-air combat with new-generation 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 jet will make Turkey one of the few countries with the infrastructure and technology to produce a fifth-generation combat aircraft.