President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled the name of Turkey’s national combat aircraft, known as the TF-X, as KAAN on Monday.
Türkiye is currently in every field – on land, sea and undersea, air and space, Erdogan remarked at a “Century of the Future” event staged by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in Ankara to unveil its aircraft, notably the KAAN.
The aircraft was named after Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), according to the president.
Kaan is a historical title used by Turkic and Mongolian monarchs.
Erdogan emphasized that recent defense and technology products in Türkiye, such as the satellite IMECE, battleship TCG Anadolu, main battle tank Altay, and multirole helicopter Gokbey, were equipped with a new engine, and that better projects are in the works.
“If we are talking about the Century of Türkiye today, the success we have achieved in the defense industry, which is both the insurance of our security and the locomotive of technological progress, has a great share in this,” he remarked.
The Turkish leader stated that KAAN will finish the testing procedure and enter the Turkish army’s inventory within a couple of years.
TAI designed the KAAN fifth-generation aircraft to replace the Turkish army’s outdated F-16 fleet.
With this aircraft, Turkey will join the ranks of the five countries that have such technologies, according to Erdogan.
The aircraft, for which work began in 2016, was delivered in March.
The 21-meter aircraft can attain a top speed of 1.8 mach thanks to its twin engines, each of which can deliver 29,000 pounds (13,000 kg) of thrust.
High situational awareness, streamlined pilot workload, combat damage detection, new generation mission systems, minimal observability, precise strike, and internal weapon bay are some of the features of KAAN.