Turkiye’s first national fighter aircraft, KAAN, completed its first flight on Wednesday as part of the country’s efforts to develop its air force.
TAI shared a video showing a KAAN fighter jet taking off and then returning to an air base in the north Ankara.
Turkiye aims to use domestically produced engines on KAAN in serial production, Gorgun has said, with that expected to start in 2028.
Turkiye recently secured a deal to procure 40 F-16 fighter jets and 79 modernization kits for its existing F-16 jets from the United States, after a long-delayed process.
The U.S. imposed sanctions on NATO member Turkiye’s defense industry in December 2020 over its acquisition of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system and expelled Ankara from the F-35 stealth fighter jet program, where it was a manufacturer and buyer.
Named KAAN, the fifth-generation warplane 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).
The flight marks another “critical threshold,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said.
“We experienced one of the proud days of the Turkish defense industry. Our homegrown combat aircraft, KAAN, successfully completed its first flight today. Turkiye crossed another critical threshold in producing a fifth-generation fighter jet,” Erdogan told an event in the western Afyonkarahisar province.
The president added that Turkiye’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 Turkiye 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.
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.
“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.
