The KAAN fighter jet, developed with the help of national institutions, made its maiden flight on the morning of 21 February and made a smooth landing after a short stay in the air.
The KAAN fighter jet, developed within the framework of the National Fighter Aircraft Project (MMU), one of the largest projects of the Turkish defence industry and initiated by the Secretariat of Defence Industries, made its maiden flight on Wednesday 21 February. KAAN, which took off from Mürted Airfield, flew for a short time. During the flight, KAAN was escorted by an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet.
After an uneventful first flight, the KAAN fighter jet landed, successfully hit the runway, opened its parachute and landed. After landing, KAAN passed back to the Turkish Aerospace Industries side from the connecting road at Mürted Airfield.
Test pilot Barbaros Demirbaş was in the pilot’s seat for the first flight of KAAN.
During its first flight, KAAN stayed in the air for 13 minutes, reaching an altitude of 8000 feet and a speed of 230 knots.
KAAN Fighter
Production of the KAAN, which has all the capabilities of the 5th generation fighter aircraft, such as high manoeuvrability, low radar visibility, open avionics architecture, increased situational awareness, precision targeting and interoperability, started in March 2022.
Component assembly will be completed between May and November 2022, and the final assembly line will be commissioned in November 2022. Following intensive system testing in December 2022 and January 2023, KAAN left the hangar ahead of schedule on 10 February 2023 and the first engine firing took place on 12 February 2023.
On 17 March 2023, the first slow taxi tests were successfully completed and the pre-flight tests were concluded by carrying out the necessary reinforcement activities up to the first flight.
In addition, for the configuration to be delivered to the Air Force Command, aircraft and system requirements were defined, air and system functions were determined and the preliminary design phase was completed.
TurkishDefenceNews.com