Türkiye's first fighter jet KAAN conducts maiden test flight

Türkiye's first domestic fighter jet KAAN, designed and manufactured by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), has successfully conducted its maiden test flight.

Temel Kotil, the head of TAI, said on X that KAAN stayed in the air for 13 minutes and reached a speed of 230 knots at an altitude of 8,000 feet during the flight on Wednesday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Türkiye has left behind another critical stage to produce its own fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

"In the coming period, we will continue to give new good news to our nation in the defense industry," he wrote on X.

KAAN aims to rejuvenate the Turkish army's fleet, making Türkiye one of the few countries to own this technology.

Projects for the production of KAAN began in 2016, and the fighter jet was rolled out in March 2023.

The 21-metre aircraft can reach a maximum speed of 1.8 Mach thanks to its twin engines, which can produce 13,000 kilogrammes of thrust each.

It has several features such as high situational awareness, optimised pilot workload, combat damage detection, new generation mission systems, low observability, precision strike, and internal weapon bay.

Türkiye rising in defence industry

Türkiye has become a defence products exporting country thanks to a positive change that happened because the Turkish government decided to make its own weapons in the early 2000s.

Since then, Turkish companies have been producing various military equipment like rifles, armoured vehicles, missile systems, and advanced armed drones, which are now well-known worldwide.

The defence industry of Türkiye has significantly contributed to the national economy reaching a record level of $5.5 billion in exports, a 27 percent increase from the previous year.

The average export value surpassed $65 per kilogrammes. This growth serves as an indicator of increased trust in Turkish defence industry products, with the number of countries receiving exports rising from 176 to over 185.