Türkiye reveals name of national combat aircraft as KAAN

The name of Türkiye’s national combat aircraft, known as TF-X, is KAAN, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday, May 1. Türkiye is now in every field – on land, in sea and submarine, in air and space, Erdogan said during an event – “Century of the Future“ – organized by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in the capital Ankara to introduce its aircraft together, including KAAN. The fifth-generation aircraft, KAAN, was developed by TAI with an aim to replace the Turkish army’s aging F-16 fleet. With this aircraft, Türkiye will become one of the five countries having this kind of technologies, Erdogan said. The aircraft, for which the project began in 2016, was rolled out in March. The 21-meter aircraft is able to reach a maximum speed of 1.8 mach thanks to its twin engines, which can produce 29,000 pounds (13,000 kilograms) thrust each. KAAN have several features such as high situational awareness, optimized pilot workload, combat damage detection, new generation mission systems, low observability, precision strike, and internal weapon bay.