TR Air-Force TF-X KAAN Fighter Jet

[Yasar_TR]

1. This is TFX-KAAN Fighter Jet thread. Stay on topic
2. Do not post unfounded claims without source

 

[Spitfire9]

So and now somebody tell me again why do we need the Eurofighter???

If Kaan is to be delivered in 2028, than Why the f. do we need Eurofighter? Are we extreme rich and masochists?

1 what is the earliest KAAN could reach FOC with the Turkish air force?
2 what is the earliest Eurofighter could reach FOC with the Turkish air force?

Do the answers lend weight to a choice to order Eurofighter?

PS Prompt to stay on topic was posted while I was writing this post. Please delete if appropriate.

 

[Huelague]

So and now somebody tell me again why do we need the Eurofighter???

If Kaan is to be delivered in 2028, than Why the f. do we need Eurofighter? Are we extreme rich and masochists?


Either they tell us a lot of BS, expecting big delays in the Kaan project or something. Having Kaan delivered in 2028 and purchasing Eurofighter is non sensical

We talk about Kaan delivery in 3 years, Eurofighter is unlikely to be delivered earlier

Because we need the fighter jets today and not tomorrow.

 

[uçuyorum]

Because we need the fighter jets today and not tomorrow.

Its also called not putting all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Boykaz]

So and now somebody tell me again why do we need the Eurofighter???

If Kaan is to be delivered in 2028, than Why the f. do we need Eurofighter? Are we extreme rich and masochists?


Either they tell us a lot of BS, expecting big delays in the Kaan project or something. Having Kaan delivered in 2028 and purchasing Eurofighter is non sensical

We talk about Kaan delivery in 3 years, Eurofighter is unlikely to be delivered earlier

The Turkish air force is currently alarming. While there used to be 200+ F4 phantoms and 200+ F-16s, now this number is:
235 F-16s
30+ became F-4
In other words, we need at least 400+ war planes to regain our former power.
Kaan, 20 units will be given in 2028-2029, so it is a small number.

 

[Nutuk]

Thank you all for the answers. These are your answers:

1) Kaan will replace F16s. Eurofighter will replace F4s.
2) what is the earliest KAAN could reach FOC with the Turkish air force?
3) Because we need the fighter jets today and not tomorrow.
4) Its also called not putting all your eggs in one basket.
5) The Turkish air force is currently alarming. While there used to be 200+ F4 phantoms and 200+ F-16s, now this number is: 235 F-16s, 30+ became F-4


5 different opinions and I can add also my own opinion: The Eurofighter purchase is not definitive yet, nothing signed yet. So if I try to make sense out of it (my own opinion) Turkiye is probably trying to get a deal / license to build F110 engines. If the US does not guarantee the sale of F110 than the spare option is to buy Eurofighter and deliveries of Kaan with indigenous engine will become beyond 2030. This is how I read the situation.



As we can see, none of us know the real situation why we need the Eurofighter, everyone is trying to formulate a logical sense out of it. All viable reasonings, yet again all of them our own interpretations.

I wished SSB and our air force provided their reason. It is so flimsy when they say we need them without reasoning why, while we work hard on our own 5th generation fighter jet. I see this as sabotaging our own program .

I use the hard verdict of sabotage, cos this is the reality for or situation. We already buy 40 new F16's, add also 40 Eurofighters it makes 80 foreign aircraft which means 80 Kaan fighters less.

We do not have unlimited petro dolars like S. Arabia, if we purchase foreign jets that will translate into sacrificing in the numbers of Kaan that we will purchase. There needs to be a damn good reason to explain why we go for foreign jets instead our own product.

I hope I did not bother you too much, my aim is to provoke a real deep thought on purchasing foreign jets and the consequences of it for our own fighter program

 

[Saithan]

Thank you all for the answers. These are your answers:

1) Kaan will replace F16s. Eurofighter will replace F4s.
2) what is the earliest KAAN could reach FOC with the Turkish air force?
3) Because we need the fighter jets today and not tomorrow.
4) Its also called not putting all your eggs in one basket.
5) The Turkish air force is currently alarming. While there used to be 200+ F4 phantoms and 200+ F-16s, now this number is: 235 F-16s, 30+ became F-4


5 different opinions and I can add also my own opinion: The Eurofighter purchase is not definitive yet, nothing signed yet. So if I try to make sense out of it (my own opinion) Turkiye is probably trying to get a deal / license to build F110 engines. If the US does not guarantee the sale of F110 than the spare option is to buy Eurofighter and deliveries of Kaan with indigenous engine will become beyond 2030. This is how I read the situation.



As we can see, none of us know the real situation why we need the Eurofighter, everyone is trying to formulate a logical sense out of it. All viable reasonings, yet again all of them our own interpretations.

I wished SSB and our air force provided their reason. It is so flimsy when they say we need them without reasoning why, while we work hard on our own 5th generation fighter jet. I see this as sabotaging our own program .

I use the hard verdict of sabotage, cos this is the reality for or situation. We already buy 40 new F16's, add also 40 Eurofighters it makes 80 foreign aircraft which means 80 Kaan fighters less.

We do not have unlimited petro dolars like S. Arabia, if we purchase foreign jets that will translate into sacrificing in the numbers of Kaan that we will purchase. There needs to be a damn good reason to explain why we go for foreign jets instead our own product.

I hope I did not bother you too much, my aim is to provoke a real deep thought on purchasing foreign jets and the consequences of it for our own fighter program

Maybe you are right, but sometimes you need to burn some money in order to get what you really want, so if we end up buying 40 EF in order to get the license production of F110, then that is what we need to do. At least we'll end up with a platform that can be used until 2045-2050 in case our other plans don't deliver on time.

But I understand why you dislike the guessing game, but it's a like a poker game, and if you play with open cards and the others don't then you lose.

Which is another reason I like Hürjet so much because IMO we're playing with open cards and winning with the Hürjet project. (granted that we truly have a deal for 90+ hürjet engine purchase approved).

 

[uçuyorum]

Thank you all for the answers. These are your answers:

1) Kaan will replace F16s. Eurofighter will replace F4s.
2) what is the earliest KAAN could reach FOC with the Turkish air force?
3) Because we need the fighter jets today and not tomorrow.
4) Its also called not putting all your eggs in one basket.
5) The Turkish air force is currently alarming. While there used to be 200+ F4 phantoms and 200+ F-16s, now this number is: 235 F-16s, 30+ became F-4


5 different opinions and I can add also my own opinion: The Eurofighter purchase is not definitive yet, nothing signed yet. So if I try to make sense out of it (my own opinion) Turkiye is probably trying to get a deal / license to build F110 engines. If the US does not guarantee the sale of F110 than the spare option is to buy Eurofighter and deliveries of Kaan with indigenous engine will become beyond 2030. This is how I read the situation.



As we can see, none of us know the real situation why we need the Eurofighter, everyone is trying to formulate a logical sense out of it. All viable reasonings, yet again all of them our own interpretations.

I wished SSB and our air force provided their reason. It is so flimsy when they say we need them without reasoning why, while we work hard on our own 5th generation fighter jet. I see this as sabotaging our own program .

I use the hard verdict of sabotage, cos this is the reality for or situation. We already buy 40 new F16's, add also 40 Eurofighters it makes 80 foreign aircraft which means 80 Kaan fighters less.

We do not have unlimited petro dolars like S. Arabia, if we purchase foreign jets that will translate into sacrificing in the numbers of Kaan that we will purchase. There needs to be a damn good reason to explain why we go for foreign jets instead our own product.

I hope I did not bother you too much, my aim is to provoke a real deep thought on purchasing foreign jets and the consequences of it for our own fighter program

We were first contemplating eurofighter as an alternative, but UK and other didn't like being the backup and told us to make up our minds basically. And force saw a risk so they decided the urgency for more fighters justifies the eurofighter purchase. The timeline for when kaan will be operational and available in large numbers is still not known and not before 2030s by best estimate. We arent getting 20 kaan by 2028 like previously said, we could get 40 eurofighters before 2030 though very likely

 

[Turkic]

Scholz said they let for it and the inspection for sale is ongoing in Turkiye. (Anadolu Agency)

About the EF discussion:

"We don't need EF's now but we're making purchases for our future needs" This was what the MoD did say about EF purchase.

So what could be these future needs from my sight:

TAF is trying to keep high-low balance as complementers.

We're using F-16's as the low complementer -and we will for more years- and F-4's were the high arm of the air forces but today, F-4's are barely capable of filling the high side for TurAF. We need a new high complementer. We do need but it has the urge to have them before 2030, not now. That is why we're trying to make a deal now because we will get them around 2030 if we purchase it now.

Why it is not urgent until 2030 ? Because retirements of our F-4's was delayed to 2030 after the US kicked us from the JSF program.

Then the second why forms as a question: Why do we need another high complementer other than Kaan after 2030 ?

This question may have variety of answers.

1) Production rate for Kaan will not let us have enough fleets at least until 2035. It gets even worse if you consider the situation of 2 of Kaan's future customers: Azerbaijan and Pakistan. They're much closer to possible conflicts than we do. Armenia is arming heavily and Pakistan has live conflict zones in both Afghanistan and India borders. Tensions with Afganistan won't keep for long years (imo) but Kashmir is always hot. We also may have problems over Aegean, Mediterrenean and especially on Cyprus but we had worse times with Greeks before. Waters seems calm in the next decade. So first batches of Kaan's with indigenious engines can be forwarded to the 2 of our major allies and this would mean less than 5 fleets of Kaan's for TurAF until past 2035. 2 fleets of EF's could keep it up for it.

2&3) Kaan will have upgrades after 2030 too. All fighter jets start their career with the need of further improvements. F-16 was developed as an A-A oriented fighter. So was Eurofighter. Both are multi-purpose jets now. F-35 had critical improvements in the past years and it will have more. It might take until 2040 for Kaan to be what is awaited from it. Eurofighter would fill the gap and could be used for reverse engineering (Not copying, legal reverse engineering. Examine it and develop one by yourself too.).

4) Eurofighter is an expensive toy in all terms but it is a very good fighter for sure. It is the best overall fighter alongside the F-15 to me (excluding unproven newborn 5th gen fighters like F-35 and SU-57). We have F-16's but they're the low complementers of the air force. We have our own projects and they're supposed to be good but again, "supposed". Leave alone having a war-proven fighter, we did not have tests to prove them in any real life condition yet. Eurofighter as a proven fighter, even stated as the best fighter in NATO by some of our own pilots who had practice and mission flights alongst and against them, is a good choice for TurAF.

2 other reasons:

4) Its also called not putting all your eggs in one basket.
5) The Turkish air force is currently alarming. While there used to be 200+ F4 phantoms and 200+ F-16s, now this number is: 235 F-16s, 30+ became F-4

Sum:

There is no exact reason we can point for this purchase because we don't know enough just as @Nutuk said. But all these reasons we have pointed ,either important or little, makes it a good purchase when you gather them together.

 

[Boykaz]

But there is something you have forgotten: Iran will buy 20+ Su-35. Greece 24 rafale, Egypt 30+ rafale

In other words, the countries around us are switching to powerful twin-engine systems. There was no such situation before, our F-16s were sufficient, but now we are in a critical situation.

 

[boredaf]

Only countries on the planet that are strictly switching 5th gen jets are the ones that have smaller air forces that do not need workhorses because someone else will do the dirty work for them. US, China and Russia all still buying 4th gen jets and upgrading the already existing ones. France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Israel are all buying 4th gen planes as well.

5th gen planes are expensive and resource intensive to produce, expensive to maintain and expensive to fly. It makes absolutely 0 sense to unnecessarily use them in missions where a 5th gen wouldn't be required to participate. Hence, we are still upgrading our F-16s and hoping to buy more F-16s and EFs.

 

[I_Love_F16]

Only countries on the planet that are strictly switching 5th gen jets are the ones that have smaller air forces that do not need workhorses because someone else will do the dirty work for them. US, China and Russia all still buying 4th gen jets and upgrading the already existing ones. France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Israel are all buying 4th gen planes as well.

5th gen planes are expensive and resource intensive to produce, expensive to maintain and expensive to fly. It makes absolutely 0 sense to unnecessarily use them in missions where a 5th gen wouldn't be required to participate. Hence, we are still upgrading our F-16s and hoping to buy more F-16s and EFs.

On top of that it's highly unlikely that we will procure 250 Kaans like stated multiple times here, simply because it will be too expensive to buy and maintain. My prediction is that when Kaan finaly enters LRIP, they will drastically reduce the procurement number. For most of our sorties, the armed forces will rely on drones and 4.5th gen fighters.

 

[Spitfire9]

... it's highly unlikely that we will procure 250 Kaans like stated multiple times here, simply because it will be too expensive to buy and maintain. My prediction is that when Kaan finaly enters LRIP, they will drastically reduce the procurement number. For most of our sorties, the armed forces will rely on drones and 4.5th gen fighters.

If Turkiye does order Eurofighter, can F-110 KAAN orders be lowered so that more TF35000 KAAN can be produced at a later date?

While I appreciate that steps may have been taken for production of 20 a year from 2028/2029, reducing that number should reduce pressure on TAI and suppliers.

 

[hugh]

While I appreciate that steps may have been taken for production of 20 a year from 2028/2029, reducing that number should reduce pressure on TAI and suppliers.

IMHO, the production rate of KAAN will be nowhere near that number in this decade. It would actually be a huge surprise for me if we managed to produce 20 KAANs a year, before 2032.

 

[Nutuk]

IMHO, the production rate of KAAN will be nowhere near that number in this decade. It would actually be a huge surprise for me if we managed to produce 20 KAANs a year before 2032.

Pulling up the production rate is quite possible. Tomtas factory can take over a lot of production like helicopter and Hurkus / Hurjet prodcution and free up capacity at TAI

 

[Oublious]

Imagine Trump says let Cyprus drill in your waters or i cut you off the parts .

x.com

x.com

Whats wrong with the site? X link does not work...

 

[Oublious]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1883104120011121134

 

[hugh]

Pulling up the production rate is quite possible. Tomtas factory can take over a lot of production like helicopter and Hurkus / Hurjet prodcution and free up capacity at TAI

Factory floor is not what I'm concerned about. KAAN has shitload of locally-designed and manufactured parts. Serially producing the aircraft will equate to serially producing all the subsystems as well. The production can only move as fast as the slowest part of the supply chain. Unfortunately these subsystems are in development stage themselves. Their design will have to mature and then a production system has to be designed and implemented. There is bound to be issues in producing some parts. It will be a bumpy road and certainly won't be as easy as it was planned in the first place.


And don't you people think it's absurd to claim that you will deliver 20 aircrafts in your first production year? Has that ever happen? Like why didn't we deliver 20 something GÖKBEYs last year and only three were delivered?

 

[Nutuk]

Well I do not believe 20 aircraft in the first year too, first see than believe but that production rates significantly upped cannot be a problem for our industry.
Turkish industry has crossed a threshold in production capabilities, she can easily double, triple production rates

 

[I_Love_F16]

If Turkiye does order Eurofighter, can F-110 KAAN orders be lowered so that more TF35000 KAAN can be produced at a later date?

While I appreciate that steps may have been taken for production of 20 a year from 2028/2029, reducing that number should reduce pressure on TAI and suppliers.

Could be. Either way, the indigenous engine won’t be ready to be mass produced before at least 2035. This is pure speculation from my part but a realistic one, I believe, knowing that we never designed and produced an engine of that size before. So we will have no choice but to order Kaan with the F110 engine for the time being.