TR Air-Force TF-X KAAN Fighter Jet

[Ripley]

a tweet from 2021

@Ripley can you file a petition to tip the Americans to move their assembly line to Turkey?

TAI will take the bullet and save the mighty F35

The only work force he is concerned about is pick up truck jobs at giant corporates and miners in PA. Also, as next president’s advisor Musk already dissed and mocked F35 this might be a good idea

 

[hugh]

If a program like Gripen E (100 ordered so far) doubled to 200 orders, I could see that reducing unit costs materially. Would 100 more F-35 have much effect on unit costs? I don't see it. But I'm no expert.

F35's flyaway cost is already less than many 4th gen fighters and ordering 40-60 more airframe wouldn't make a dent in the cost structure of the program. I see no way of us joining the JSF to produce parts. We could buy some in the future but that's about it. we'd be an ordinary buyer with no added benefits.

 

[No Name]

I don't think most people understand this. Tech is simply not there yet.

but isn't that the most important role of a fighter jet in the first place?

 

[Kitra]

Drones will dominate any 4th gen figther within 5 years and possibly 5th gen figther in 10 years. This is specially true for a country like USA which has all the infrastructure ready for this today. They have the drones, they have the sensors, they have the ammunition and most importantly, they have Starlink to control any drone around the world in real time with latency as low as 20-40ms and gigabit throughput. For the last second defence, current AI algorithms is more than enough to do evasive maneuvers requireing <1 ms response time, which is far faster than humans can do.

The second part people miss completely is that there is a hard requirement on manned figthers to be big, expensive and high-performance in order to protect the pilot. So fleets concentrate on a single high performance platform such as F16 or f35 as their main offensive figther. The only viable tactics for manned figthers is to be fast in, carry a lot of bombs and be fast out of the area of danger.

A drone does not have this requirement or limitation so you won't see a fleet with only high performance drones in offensive or defensive roles. You will see very small cheap stealth drones doing passive surveillance 50-200 km in front of your air-superiority fighters. These small surveillance drones does not even need to be required to survive. They just needs to be invisible to the enemy as long as possible. The figthers will then be followed with stealthy or heavy bombers. Finally, you will have heavy AWACS drones with very powerful radar as last line somewhere 200 to 300 km behind your small surveillance drones. All this for less than what a single modern high-performance figther cost today.

So manned fighters are disadvantaged in tactics, sensors, ammunition, numbers and risk management. There is simply no possibility for manned figthers to survive against drones in the near future when the drones are designed for their specific tasks.

The real question is, will any other country outside USA have these in the near future. Yes, China in particular but Turkey is also on a good way to have this. Europe, not so much in the next 10 years.

Here are some link for what AI can do even for hobbyist today.

Besides these, all of you must have seen the swarms with 10000 drones. No human or group of humans can come close to control such swarms. These swarms will be deadly against any target whatsoever as there is simply no defence against them. Send in 1000 small drones against a aircraft carrier and it is 100% certain that the drones to win by blowing up all the sensors and weapons in the whole carrier group. The final blow to the carrier group will come from the bombers drones.

 

[No Name]

There was news that the US is planning to have 1,000 AI powered jets by 2028, so the AI fighter age is coming a lot sooner then most people think.

 

[dBSPL]

When Musk is talking about drones instead of F-35's, he's not talking about quadcopters and stuff. He's talking about this:

So, mock him at your own peril.

I am sure that the concept of this KE fleet autonomy has attracted the attention of many circles in the world. While in our country it has hardly been on the agenda of social media.

*

On the other hand, the aim of the KAAN programme is not only a 5th generation jet, but also an -optionally- manned next gen jet. Maybe not block-30/40, but ultimately the aim is to gain such a capability. And it is likely that the ability to return to base without pilot control and advanced landing and take-off support will be included earlier in the range of the aircraft's wide range of decision support and autonomy systems. But more importantly, in the years when KAAN becomes the TAF's main combat aircraft, perhaps it will usher in a different era in fleet composition. For example, only one pilot will go on a mission that previously sent 4 pilots conventionally, and the other 2 or 3 aircraft will consist of unmanned jets. What kind of interface will be provided to the pilot here is one of the issues I am most curious about. Maybe it sounds a bit utopian now, but maybe the fighter pilots we come to the 2040s will have an interface with some kind of neural link. (If the world enters a period of great reckoning again in the 2030s, there will be a quantum leap in these areas.)

In line with these thoughts, I am of the opinion that the single-engine light KAAN aircraft, which is sometimes described in defence circles, will actually be ANKA-X.

 

[Kartal1]

Guys, please discuss the F-35 project in the context of Turkiye in the thread below.

Turkiye's F-35 Project and Discussions

If all S-400 systems are active, they can cover whole country. No escape zone for F-35. Another option would be North Cyprus. Not how it works … An F-35 has to be pretty close for the S-400 to shot it down.

defencehub.live

Let's keep this thread clean.

Thank you!

 

[Spitfire9]

I see that the US upgrade kits for F-16 are no longer wanted.

https://bulgarianmilitary

.com/2024/11/27/turkey-shocks-the-u-s-drops-f-16-fighters-deal-goes-local/

I presume that using local upgrades will save a lot of money. If (if, I don't know) the KAAN PROJECT would be accelerated by increased funding, should some of those savings be diverted to KAAN/TF35000 or might they be earmarked for an EF procurement?

Would Turkiye also drop the 40 x F-16 procurement if an agreement on terms to buy Eurofighter were reached? I guess that Eurofighters could be delivered relatively quickly (<3 years).

 

[dBSPL]

I see that the US upgrade kits for F-16 are no longer wanted.

https://bulgarianmilitary

.com/2024/11/27/turkey-shocks-the-u-s-drops-f-16-fighters-deal-goes-local/

I presume that using local upgrades will save a lot of money. If (if, I don't know) the KAAN PROJECT would be accelerated by increased funding, should some of those savings be diverted to KAAN/TF35000 or might they be earmarked for an EF procurement?

Would Turkiye also drop the 40 x F-16 procurement if an agreement on terms to buy Eurofighter were reached? I guess that Eurofighters could be delivered relatively quickly (<3 years).

The first instalment payment for the supply of 40 new F-16s was announced by the Ministry of Defence. In other words, while EF is still in negotiating technical details, the process of purchasing additional F-16s has officially started. Although, the F-35s that have been lying in the hangar for years have also been paid for lol. Jokes aside, it seems that the F-16s will be the earliest to be delivered to the TAF among the three platforms in the statement made by the MoD. Germany played a major role in this, by stalling the process for a long time.

 

[Zoth]

I see that the US upgrade kits for F-16 are no longer wanted.

https://bulgarianmilitary .com/2024/11/27/turkey-shocks-the-u-s-drops-f-16-fighters-deal-goes-local/

I presume that using local upgrades will save a lot of money.

Other than the saving money, LM is already full on upgrade kit orders, getting those upgrades through USA would take so much time.

If (if, I don't know) the KAAN PROJECT would be accelerated by increased funding, should some of those savings be diverted to KAAN/TF35000 or might they be earmarked for an EF procurement?

Kaan and TF35K is already funded enough, the development part is matter of time and not matter of money, you simply can't speed up the development project by feeding more money into the project.

Would Turkiye also drop the 40 x F-16 procurement if an agreement on terms to buy Eurofighter were reached? I guess that Eurofighters could be delivered relatively quickly (<3 years).

No, i don't think so, F16 combined with F110 engines is still the backbone of TAF, we know in and out of that platform, F16 and EF would be used in different type of operations(EF is mainly to counter Greek Rafales in the short term).

 

[hugh]

Kaan and TF35K is already funded enough, the development part is matter of time and not matter of money, you simply can't speed up the development project by feeding more money into the project.

how do you know this? especially about the engine. this must be an assumption.

 

[Zoth]

how do you know this? especially about the engine. this must be an assumption.

Of course that's an assumption, my bad for not stating it.

After getting kicked out of F35, Kaan is our only option of getting a 5th gen fighter, and we have to do it "quite fast" since our neighbor is also getting F35s around the planned "first service date" of Kaan. If there were budget/funding issues, we would've already heard that from insiders.

 

[Iskander]

I see that the US upgrade kits for F-16 are no longer wanted.

https://bulgarianmilitary

.com/2024/11/27/turkey-shocks-the-u-s-drops-f-16-fighters-deal-goes-local/

I presume that using local upgrades will save a lot of money. If (if, I don't know) the KAAN PROJECT would be accelerated by increased funding, should some of those savings be diverted to KAAN/TF35000 or might they be earmarked for an EF procurement?

Would Turkiye also drop the 40 x F-16 procurement if an agreement on terms to buy Eurofighter were reached? I guess that Eurofighters could be delivered relatively quickly (<3 years).

It should be noted that Türkiye needs the consent of only the US to buy the F-16, while for the Eurofighter it needs the consent of four countries. We have seen how Germany, unlike the UK, Spain and Italy, did not agree.

 

[Spitfire9]

It should be noted that Türkiye needs the consent of only the US to buy the F-16, while for the Eurofighter it needs the consent of four countries. We have seen how Germany, unlike the UK, Spain and Italy, did not agree.

Ironically Dassault sounds like it would be the ideal supplier - no US political complications with Congress, no multi-nation supplier complications as with Eurofighter.

 

[Saithan]

Ironically Dassault sounds like it would be the ideal supplier - no US political complications with Congress, no multi-nation supplier complications as with Eurofighter.

Unfortunately we're very much at odds with France. I can't recall the last Military purchase from France, could have been some ships back in the 70's or 80's.

If possible I would have wanted upgrades enough for a 24 F16. Either to block 70 or V. As I was thinking of possibilities with regard to some F16 that aren't in the TAF inventory.

As potential upgrade kit for PAF or Iraqi F16 under some obscure circumstances and have them stationed in Turkey on semi permanent.

 

[boredaf]

If possible I would have wanted upgrades enough for a 24 F16. Either to block 70 or V. As I was thinking of possibilities with regard to some F16 that aren't in the TAF inventory.

As potential upgrade kit for PAF or Iraqi F16 under some obscure circumstances and have them stationed in Turkey on semi permanent.

What? You can't just buy a kit for yourself and then apply them to some other country's planes.

 

[Saithan]

What? You can't just buy a kit for yourself and then apply them to some other country's planes.

Yes, I understand. But I was just thinking of potential uses for them.

I'm aware of how bad things could turn out. But just in case we could get second hand F16s.

 

[Kitra]

Unfortunately we're very much at odds with France. I can't recall the last Military purchase from France, could have been some ships back in the 70's or 80's.

If possible I would have wanted upgrades enough for a 24 F16. Either to block 70 or V. As I was thinking of possibilities with regard to some F16 that aren't in the TAF inventory.

As potential upgrade kit for PAF or Iraqi F16 under some obscure circumstances and have them stationed in Turkey on semi permanent.

We purchased Eryx ATGMs from them about 20 years ago. They turned out to be shit so we developed our own.

 

[Strong AI]

Technology and art came together on the canvas of visually impaired painter Eşref Armağan.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1863819615937184211

 

[Strong AI]

View attachment 72494

30x113 internal machine gun developed by SARSILMAZ for KAAN

Source: Avionot

Ok so here is the tweet.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1864361372672282685

He doesn't mention SARSILMAZ because it is produced by aselsan konya, which you can see literally in the picture.
Looks like this is from 2022.

ASELSAN Konya'dan yeni nesil elektrik tahrikli top sistemleri!

İstanbul Fuar Merkezi'nde düzenlenen SAHA EXPO 2022 fuarında ASELSAN Konya, farklı kalibrelerde elektrik tahrikli top sistemlerini sergiledi.

www.defenceturk.net

There is nowhere else stated that this will be used by KAAN.
Avionot getting worse and worse.