TR TF-X KAAN Fighter Jet

Heartbang

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We might get them some as 4.5 gen jets, with foreign engines.
F110-laden KAAN's are more like 4.9th gen. They'll pack every 5th gen tech there is apart from the engines.
If it is feasible to reach IOC with F110 engines in 2025 I'd opt for that. Those airframes should be able to be upgraded later, since modularity is a big focal point of 5th gen stealth fighters.
 

B_A

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You would know that two of the biggest overseas Flanker operators are India and China don't you? Apart from them, most international Flanker operators are those who've acquired them for a squadron or two.

Comparing that to F-35 program of record, F-35 orders from Korea and Japan alone covers the total number of Su-30 variants sold to countries apart from China and India. Add in Australian and Israel, then total Asia-Pacific region F-35 sales eclipse total sales figure of Su-27 and Su-30 variants operated and sold to anywhere other than China and India.

You're just understating how big of a market F-35 is placed in. Add Europe and it's not even close. This thing was developed to replace F-16 and Harrier.


250 aircrafts only for Turkiye is absolutely overblown.

As for Pakistan, you'll see, but the actual track record says otherwise.

Azerbaijan sure, they've joined the program afterall, and Kazakhstan maybe, but their numbers doesn't get anywhere near hundreads of aircrafts that's needed to meet your projection. Qatar's number one goal is to keep their weapons supply diversified and keep diplomatic relations through lucrative arms deals, so even if they get Kaan, it wouldn't be as much as they buy different western jets.


That would't stop france from selling Rafales. Also they'll have an advantage in terms of being ITAR free until TF-35000 comes online.

Also, how are you so sure about cost overrun for GCAP when the project is just entering demonstrator phase? Moreover, GCAP will quite literally be in different market segment to Kaan in the first place. Same applies for NGF and the point is actually moot. What really matter is China.


Yeah, and that's 15 years from 2030, around the time which Kaan is planned to be declared IOC. France have sold less than 300 Mirage 2000s abroad and that was a much cheaper aircraft, literally in the Gripen weight class, and again, all the while France had and still has much more experience in international arms sales, foreign influence and ability to issue credit.

Discussion about emerging market/developong nations' economic outlook is a topic for different thread, but if I am to be clear about one thing, it is the fact that middle income trap has been plaguing these so-called developing economies for literally decades. Only exceptions have been Taiwan and Korea in the last 3 deacdes and that's only two out of literally dozens. Even if we count PRC, they are really an outlier, and we'll be able to agree on that.

Without substantial increase of per capita productivity (which is the most important metric when it comes to tax revenue relative to the abaolute size of the economy) in these developong countries, there's no prospect of any substantial increase in military spending capabilities by these countries. And that proved to be incredibly difficult.

Also, if anything, apart from middle income trap, recent re-ashoring trends coupled with increasing capital cost of global warming, growing hurdles of entering more advanced industries, poor political and diplomatic decisions and plethora of other factors, now it's only getting less likely/harder that there will be any new developed, high income economy to emerge anywhere globally.

Sure, more countries will transition from being absolutely dirt poor to the status of "developing economy/emerging market" in the next decade, but ASEAN countries gives you a very good idea of what to expect from these emerging market countries when it comes to their procurement capacity and it isn't all that much.

Moreover, although it might be true that those specific countries you've mentioned above might not be interested in an arms deal with China, many more current emerging market countries are and same will be true for those who newly acquired that status. Just look at ASEAN, South Asian, West Asian and African region and it's clear as a day. If anything, China has only been demostrating that they have formidable capability in supplying weapons to other countries and are really starting to ramp up their involvement in recent year.

So TUSAS and Turkiye trying to pitch Kaan wouldn't only face competition from traditional players like France, but also from China. And China especially shares the same advantage of US made equippment, that they are acquired and operated in large numbers by the country of its origin, ensuring superb economics of scale and garaunteed life cycle support.
I think if KF21 cheap enough, they will sell very good.
 

boredaf

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F110-laden KAAN's are more like 4.9th gen. They'll pack every 5th gen tech there is apart from the engines.
If it is feasible to reach IOC with F110 engines in 2025 I'd opt for that. Those airframes should be able to be upgraded later, since modularity is a big focal point of 5th gen stealth fighters.
4.5 is what every jet without a proper engine is called and Kaan will be no different until we get it sorted out. There is no need to make up names just to make ourselves feel better about it. For once, just once, I wish we could be honest and realistic about our situation and expectations.
 

Quasar

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If we are looking for any resemblance guess Israel is a better example for Turkey than France…,

Resemblance is quite apparent in 3 key areas;

-living in a low intensity conflict environment provides constant feedback from the field to improve your already combat proven Products.

- don’t know How much Israel has been giving out loans for countries to buy their equipment on debt but they have been quite generous about ToT

--in the near future modernization projects will have a great potential to also provide sizable income for our military industry.... for instance submarine modernization for Pakistan, tank modernization for Chile, aircraft modernization for Azerbaijan, helicopter modernization for South Africa...


Enhanced situational awareness, data fusion, stealth / low observability, high maneuverability or emerging autonomous loyal wingman concepts are commonly seen as the distinguishing factors for a 5 gen Fighter and these are also the same factors which determines the way that 5th generation fighters conduct their missions. Regardless of what is published on the sales brochure the fact is not only for Hurjet but current trainers inherenetly all fall short of providing adequate understanding of the way a 5 gen conduct its mission to the pilot.
 
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neosinan

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I don't dispute the fact that Turkiye would need that much fighters in total, but I very much doubt that it will be able to afford and more importantly, sustain more than 250 Kaan. Kaan is a heavy weight fighter in its core which is very difficult to be cheaper than single engined light or medium weight fighters. They'll need some sort of high-low mix going forward, be it of Kaan and KE, or some sort of new light weight fighter in THK inventory. Maybe there's going to be a combat variant of Hurjet in the mix as well, but the point is, I highly doubt that the entirety of F-16 will be replaced only and completely by Kaan in the future.
10-15 years ago Turkish airforce was consist of 250 F16 And 150 F4. Original plan was to replace 150 F4 with at least 100 F35 but that number would likely change. And TFX project was going to be single engine local fighter similar to check mate and it was planned as 1to1 replacement. 350+ fighter jet was the bare minimum target and there was a hope that F35 number would be increased further with smaller purchases. But that wasn't the plan.

Afaik 350 is still the official target but when TFX production number will reach to that number is the real discussion. You can further continue with your speculation but We need to emphasize official air forces targets here independent of economic situation of 2023. 90s economic situation and Turkish military spending of the time is to testament to this end. If and When Turkish Army needs the resources, every other need became secondary.
 

TR_123456

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I don't dispute the fact that Turkiye would need that much fighters in total, but I very much doubt that it will be able to afford and more importantly, sustain more than 250 Kaan. Kaan is a heavy weight fighter in its core which is very difficult to be cheaper than single engined light or medium weight fighters. They'll need some sort of high-low mix going forward, be it of Kaan and KE, or some sort of new light weight fighter in THK inventory. Maybe there's going to be a combat variant of Hurjet in the mix as well, but the point is, I highly doubt that the entirety of F-16 will be replaced only and completely by Kaan in the future.
Why not,the KAAN is a domestic fighter,all systems will be produced inhouse which will make it as cheap as the F-16 in terms of sustaining such an amount of fighter jets?
The double engines part will increase costs but not when the indigenous engine is ready.
It will take at least a decade(from 2028) before we have 300 KAAN's so,i dont see a problem there.
As you know,when a platform has matured the costs go down.
Not to forget,operating costs are always lower then in US,Europe and South Korea or Japan.
 

Heartbang

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As you know when a platform has matured the costs go down.
And also manufactured en masse. Which is why we need to market and sell this aircraft with a zealous fervor.
And when you get the momentum rolling on that, you'll get a fighter that outsells anything on the market.
Which is the driving force behind my argument when I say KAAN will outsell the F-35.
 

dBSPL

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Why so?
The Turkish Airforce has around 300 fighter jets(F-4,F-16),why the need for less?
We need at least 300 fighter aircraft in our neighbourhood.
Within 20 years, the TAF will permanently become the most powerful air force with independent operational capability in the EMEA region, which will last until the end of the century.
1200px-EMEA_region_worldmap.svg.png
 

Heartbang

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Within 20 years, the TAF will permanently become the most powerful air force with independent operational capability in the EMENA region, which will last until the end of the century.
1200px-EMEA_region_worldmap.svg.png
You forgot to put Russia and the Central Asia in the coloured thingy.
 

Afif

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Within 20 years, the TAF will permanently become the most powerful air force with independent operational capability in the EMENA region, which will last until the end of the century.
1200px-EMEA_region_worldmap.svg.png

No offense, but Should you already count off UK and France?
They have the Financial and technological means to build Tempset and FCAS in hundreds. And unlike the previous time they could do it as the great power competition is rapidly heating up.
 

B_A

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HAHAHAHA I will say that again ,as Japanese come,Tempset will became a new F-2 or total fail project.

X-2 Shinshin ,F3 and xf9 engine had disappeared for years,after Japanese propaganda

Japanese defence industry has the abilty to ruin every project
 

Heartbang

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No offense, but Should you already count off UK and France?
They have the Financial and technological means to build Tempset and FCAS in hundreds. And unlike the previous time they could do it as the great power competition is rapidly heating up.
AFAIK in the case of FCAS Dassault CEO has said "we missed 2040 because we didn't started now" back in 2022.
The French are incompetent, just like Biden.
 

dBSPL

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You forgot to put Russia and the Central Asia in the coloured thingy.
I got the picture ready-made from Wikipedia. By EMEA I mean the combined Europe-Middle East-Africa concept. I meant it as a geopolitical model. You can stretch the geographical boundaries. In general terms, it is the integration of The Intermediate Region concept with mainland Europe.
 

dBSPL

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No offense, but Should you already count off UK and France?
They have the Financial and technological means to build Tempset and FCAS in hundreds. And unlike the previous time they could do it as the great power competition is rapidly heating up.
IMHO, mistake is that you always envisage future projections in linear terms. Only a very small slice of world history has really progressed in this way. Countries lose momentum for various reasons, demography, technology, political stalemates, civil wars, social depressions, millions of reasons... The potential of countries can change dynamically. The uniqueness of mankind in the phase of states in many ways it is related to this. By the mid of 1800s, in Abdulaziz era, the Ottoman Empire had third largest navy in the world. But all of Europe and the world saw that Ottomans was clearly seeing that nearing the end of its life. The political and military structure within the state had decayed, leaving it open to foreign intervention and provocation in all social and political spheres.

Europe lost its status as the main power centre after process that started with the world wars up to today. What has been lost is geopolitical momentum. By subordinating the security paradigm to environmental factors, it has limited itself, but in the period 1950-2010, it has created a great economic development. The EU project also has many dilemmas within itself, that was started with a motives like aimed for a return. Bcs, center of gravity of the world has shifted step by step. Especially the war in Ukraine has shown that the economic development and prosperity of life in the EU is fundamentally dependent on the security strategies of the Atlantic structure. It is like building a beautiful house but handing the key to the landlord, which they see themselves as savior.

Today there is no big difference in military capacity between the colonial era superpowers you mention and, for example, the western articulated Far Asian major powers (Korea for example). They will be likely to be even more disadvantaged over years. In short, what I am saying is not that the TAF has become a global superpower in 20 years, but that the balance of power in the world is going in a different direction.
 

dBSPL

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European 'superpowers' by the way...

franc1.PNG

franc2.PNG

german.PNG

UK.PNG


And Israel
israel.PNG


As last example, Korea
kore1.PNG

kore2.PNG


Israel has the unique advantage of being able to customize any US aerospace airframes. Korea, on the other hand, is gradually moving to indigenous platforms.
 

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