TR TF-X KAAN Fighter Jet

[Huelague]

1) They're aiming to fly this prototype. A good amount of work has gone to the current airframe, and with no major setbacks I don't see why they wouldn't fly GTU-0.

2) Are you referring to the LRIP aircraft or simply the differences between this prototype and the upcoming ones?

LRIP and the final ones which goes into serial production.

 

[MADDOG]

LRIP and the final ones which goes into serial production.

Well of course it won't be a completely new aircraft. And from the 3rd aircraft onwards I expect to come across much more limited design variations resulting in fewer differences in-between prototypes as well as initial production aircraft. The main topic of discussion here is what changes would be considered "fundamental". A drastic change in the eyes of aerodynamicists could be the slight widening of the aft fuselage, whereas for the general audience a drastic change could be the re-positioning of the vertical stabilizers to the side booms or the implementation of a Raptor-like empennage etc. The same goes for people who work on different departments for the MMU program. A slight change for them might end up being drastic for others. This argument can be manipulated and twisted in a variety of ways. There will be changes for sure, but I find it unnecessary to dive into how "drastic" these changes might end up being. Since we are still talking within the compounds of the MMU program, it is only natural for these changes to not be greatly significant. The evolution of Hürkuş is a good enough example to this in my eyes. The most recent (as in it continuously goes through modifications) -B variant flying out there is the most experimental they've been so far. And mind you this comes after CDR. Even so, we can safely regard it as being the same platform with raked wingtips, an altered tailplane and an extended dorsal fin. TAI has gone through many revisions and a bunch of wingtip devices throughout Hürkuş' development but that is out of context. All in all, I believe it is relatively difficult for us to speak of these changes and properly categorize them as such. But changes are a given, and they will happen.

 

[uçuyorum]

Well of course it won't be a completely new aircraft. And from the 3rd aircraft onwards I expect to come across much more limited design variations resulting in fewer differences in-between prototypes as well as initial production aircraft. The main topic of discussion here is what changes would be considered "fundamental". A drastic change in the eyes of aerodynamicists could be the slight widening of the aft fuselage, whereas for the general audience a drastic change could be the re-positioning of the vertical stabilizers to the side booms or the implementation of a Raptor-like empennage etc. The same goes for people who work on different departments for the MMU program. A slight change for them might end up being drastic for others. This argument can be manipulated and twisted in a variety of ways. There will be changes for sure, but I find it unnecessary to dive into how "drastic" these changes might end up being. Since we are still talking within the compounds of the MMU program, it is only natural for these changes to not be greatly significant. The evolution of Hürkuş is a good enough example to this in my eyes. The most recent (as in it continuously goes through modifications) -B variant flying out there is the most experimental they've been so far. And mind you this comes after CDR. Even so, we can safely regard it as being the same platform with raked wingtips, an altered tailplane and an extended dorsal fin. TAI has gone through many revisions and a bunch of wingtip devices throughout Hürkuş' development but that is out of context. All in all, I believe it is relatively difficult for us to speak of these changes and properly categorize them as such. But changes are a given, and they will happen.

Vertical stabilizers are there because they need to align with diverter plates for stealth don't they? Otherwise they would have to maybe align with outer side of inlet like su 57 and that would be a bit too far

 

[MADDOG]

Vertical stabilizers are there because they need to align with diverter plates for stealth don't they? Otherwise they would have to maybe align with outer side of inlet like su 57 and that would be a bit too far

That is in essence true. Regarding MMU (without getting into detail ofc), the stabs are positioned in such a way both for RCS measures and equipment placement intricacies. The current plan is to keep them as they are.

 

[uçuyorum]

Found another example of aligning with outer edge of inlet, also J20. I guess it's not that uncommon.

 

[uçuyorum]

I've found a really detailed answer about stealth characteristics, in thsi case around J20. If you are curious.

Why is J-20 believed to be stealthy even with not-in-plane canard and ventral fin? What design features onboard convince experts that J-2...

Answer (1 of 8): This question is conclusively answered by A Preliminary Assessment of Specular Radar Cross Section Performance in the Chengdu J-20 Prototype from Dr. Michael Pelosi and Dr. Carlo Kopp of Air Power Australia. They used Physical Optics simulation algorithm to calculate the Radar Cr...

www.quora.com

 

[Afif]

I've found a really detailed answer about stealth characteristics, in thsi case around J20. If you are curious.

Why is J-20 believed to be stealthy even with not-in-plane canard and ventral fin? What design features onboard convince experts that J-2...

Answer (1 of 8): This question is conclusively answered by A Preliminary Assessment of Specular Radar Cross Section Performance in the Chengdu J-20 Prototype from Dr. Michael Pelosi and Dr. Carlo Kopp of Air Power Australia. They used Physical Optics simulation algorithm to calculate the Radar Cr...

www.quora.com

Thank you for sharing this. Very informative article. However, looks like he failed to adress two primary criticism on J-20's stealth characteristic.

*Canard Movement.
*Vertical stabilizer Movement.

 

[uçuyorum]

Thank you for sharing this. Very informative article. However, looks like he failed to adress two primary criticism on J-20's stealth characteristic.

*Canard Movement.
*Vertical stabilizer Movement.

You might also like this drawing I found

 

[Afif]

You might also like this drawing I found

Great, you should do one on KAAN too.

Also, this article may interest you. A good comparison between 5th gen jets

@Abhirup Sengupta, what do you think of the J-20, relative to the SU-57, Eurocanards, and US 5th gens?

Answer (1 of 5): Abhirup Sengupta answered this question and his answer is full of groundless assumptions and displays significant bias. I will answer him point by point using screenshots. Screenshot 1: Here he shows a RCS simulation by a think tank called Air Power Australia (APA). The said thi...

www.quora.com

Bottom line is, not that Canards and vertical stabilizers are not allinged carefully, it is just when they start moving, it hurts the low observability.

(You can see how big radar signature that would create)

Also, J20 has the largest vertical stabilizer. (The whole thing moves)

(However, J20 doesn't need to use its Canards in BVR engagement & can maneuver without using them)

 

[BalkanTurk90]

Turkiye is spending alot of money on building 5gen Kaan but i dont hear any news about new airbases and other bunkers for those 5gen jets ?
So if we want to be 1st power in region we need at least 400 modern fighter jets .
What i suggest is to build and upgrade airbases that cab survive attack just like Sweeden or Iran.
1- ) 4-5 new airbases deep under mountain 500+meter deep and only airfield will be at danger of bombs but there will be ready to fix it fast during war.

2-) New SAMs will be build in mass to protect industtrial and military bases around . That way noone on earth would attack Turkiye to demage our economy and industry . As we know Russian/ukr war the SAMs take out most airforce of opponent but they needs to be in huge numbers not only 5 batteries like Turkiye is building .
Together with those bunker airbases that will protect some aircrafts from hypersonic bombs , we can became 1st power on region and beyond . The national security should not be taken lighteny . Build those airbases and mass produce every konkurt , Hisar , Siper 1/2 etc
And someone tells me this will cause alot of money than i should remember than mutiple opponents want Turkiye destroyed and devided in mutiple states that will criple economy and whole nation . Tuekiye 5th powerfull nation is a must or they will succeed to devide Turkiye .

 

[Scott Summers]

We need unlimited airdefence batteries in every corner of the country and like you said bunker airports underground.

Because maybe they are coming for us and not for Iran.

 

[Afif]

A Relatively easy way to neutralize an underground airbase is to attack the entry/exist points with heavy missile strikes. It will collapse the strcuture and block it on its face.

 

[BalkanTurk90]

A Relatively easy way to neutralize an underground airbase is to attack the entry/exist points with heavy missile strikes. It will collapse the strcuture and block it on its face.

no , it can block the entrance and demage the way but will be temporary , Just few hours and everything will be fixed .
It will be deep like this :

Even Atomic bomb cant take out the aircraft inside this . Thats what bunker is to protect 100+ Million 5 gen jet.
Thet can bomb the entry and around but that will not take out the jet . And they will be equipemnt inside and outside that will quixkly fix runway and remove stones if attack occurs.

 

[Afif]

no , it can block the entrance and demage the way but will be temporary , Just few hours and everything will be fixed .

Not so easy, you are underestimating the significance of knocking out a whole air base for 12/36 hours. Even if all the aircrafts are intact inside, they will fail to participate in the air combat fo the time being. That is a huge win for adversary.


A better strategy is dispersion. Maybe over a hundred of small airfields if possible.

 

[B3H4VE]

Yeah no, literally burying your air assets with limited exits is not a smart move.

Let's say you want to disable a traditional airbase. Depending on your attack vector, you would first disable air defence and/or the runways. Additional soft spots would be munition depots, and C&C infrastructure. Individual aircraft wouldn't be high on your list if they are spread around the field in their individual hangars. It wouldn't make sense to go after them one by one at the initial phase unless you are carpet bombing the entire base.

Meanwhile solutions to these attack vectors are also in place in an airbase. Hangars are CBRN protected and spread out. Dedicated CBRN personnel and equipment is available. Physically protected communication pathways exist (In Turkish FKM). C&C centers (SHM), fuel and munition depots are underground and have at least one backup. Mobile wireless communication infrastructure is in place. You have prefabricated runway sections for quick repairs. Plus you have your poor infantry soldiers collecting pine cones all day to have strong backs for fast runway cleanup (YAMAHA) and so on.

Basically you bunker up what you need to be bunkered up. But keep everything quick to access, repair, redundant and spread out to reduce the amount of damage a single hit can produce.

Now if you put all that in a mountain with limited entry/exit points. You are basically creating super soft points to just burry your entire force with a single strike. Not to mention your runways will still be out there unless you build some runway in to the mountain a la James Bond. But even that would be disabled with a single slam dunk to the enterence.

Of course this doesn't mean we do not have facilities within the mountains. But those are generally for deep storage of explosive stuff.

But I agree we would need upgrades to our bases. I had a short tenure as part of support force within Eskisehir 1st AFB (just a soldier, Akın in MEBS) and eventhough F-4 hangars were lovely (cold war stuff with huge steel doors, heavy grandfather phones still on the walls and so on) at least their communication infrastructure needed a re-do. As a simple example or let's call it a cross section: I am assuming a simple analog phone line won't be enough for a 5th gen fighter's hangar. Probably a fiber link would be needed because these platforms would be fully integrated to HvBS and other mission/maintenance suites. Well, replacing a physically protected 1940s built copper line with fiber optic infrastructure which would have similar reliability is no easy task. You can't just twist two wires together to make 1 line have 2 phones in a modern network or run it with its power supplied only through the switchboard. Not to mention physically protected part of it. Just one very very specific example, but I think it gives an idea on how big the overall task is.

So there will be need for upgrades in our bases to support 5th gen of things, for sure. But they are combination of many many many subtle things. Not like throwing whole doctrine out of the window.

 

[dBSPL]

The issue already well explained. The Swedish air force was envisioned as one of the first line for Soviet bombers in the Cold War-era approach. In other words, a doctrine was developed based on the assumption that in a doomsday war scenario in Europe, Soviet bombers would first flatten Sweden and its air force. So all of Sweden's combat aviation was developed accordingly. (trivia: Sweden is also the country in Europe that has built the most nuclear shelters relative to its population)

But I should add that if we are arguing the Swedish model as an example, we should not be discussing bunker airbases, which they have already abandoned, but rather the flexibility of distributed logistics systems that form the core doctrine of the air force in general. So the ability to hide a fighter jet in the woods, which requires a platform with a minimal logistics footprint, to be able to do mobile flight maintenance and refueling with a very small number of personnel and take off over a highway is still a very good approach. And, I think we have a platform that is suitable for this approach: Hürjet. The Hürjet LCA/Naval is also a possible variant of Hurjet program with the potential to be a direct competitor of the Gripen-E.

Regarding the military underground network I am definitely not in favor of discussing these topics in open forums. But I just want to say that who unfamiliar these issues cannot even imagine the underground system in TR.

 

[uçuyorum]

Turkey has quite a large area, so to get to inner lands you must cross a lot of distance with bombers and fighters, this means you have to go through our air defenses and fighters. I think the biggest threat here is a large volley of ballistic missiles that we don't have much protection against and If our jets are like in open space and in one place, but even then, a ballistic missile takes time to reach its target and our radars will detect them and know approximately where they will land, we could just move fighters out of its way even.

The real scenario where we eould need bunkers is all out war against west, and in that scenario fighters will be the least of your concern.

Like if we end up like Iran where Israel bombs them everyday with F35 or something we are unlikely to have rest of the logistics needed to operate KAAN.

 

[boredaf]

The issue already well explained. The Swedish air force was envisioned as one of the first line for Soviet bombers in the Cold War-era approach. In other words, a doctrine was developed based on the assumption that in a doomsday war scenario in Europe, Soviet bombers would first flatten Sweden and its air force. So all of Sweden's combat aviation was developed accordingly. (trivia: Sweden is also the country in Europe that has built the most nuclear shelters relative to its population)

But I should add that if we are arguing the Swedish model as an example, we should not be discussing bunker airbases, which they have already abandoned, but rather the flexibility of distributed logistics systems that form the core doctrine of the air force in general. So the ability to hide a fighter jet in the woods, which requires a platform with a minimal logistics footprint, to be able to do mobile flight maintenance and refueling with a very small number of personnel and take off over a highway is still a very good approach. And, I think we have a platform that is suitable for this approach: Hürjet. The Hürjet LCA/Naval is also a possible variant of Hurjet program with the potential to be a direct competitor of the Gripen-E.

Regarding the military underground network I am definitely not in favor of discussing these topics in open forums. But I just want to say that who unfamiliar these issues cannot even imagine the underground system in TR.

That's how Ukrainians managed to hide so many planes from Russians as well. Drones, too.

 

[Strong AI]

If that thing doesnt fly this week,i will kill someone!!!!!!!

Should we follow the evening news in the coming days or are you a professional?

 

[TR_123456]

Should we follow the evening news in the coming days or are you a professional?

Cant talk about it and it wont be on any news channel.