Turkish indigenous TF-X stealth fighter to take flight in 2023

Turkish indigenous TF-X stealth fighter jet.

The Turkish indigenous TF-X stealth fighter jet is the response to the punishment that Turkey has received from the United States for the cancellation of the F-35 order. The TF-X will be completely home-made and will fly very soon, ahead of schedule, as President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently said.

"Our fighter plane, built with national resources and technologies in all its development phases, from design to production, will fly in 2023", Erdoğan said on July 12.

The first indigenous Turkish fighter, developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), will be ready to fly on the occasion of the centenary of the Turkish Republic.

Delays in the development of the aircraft and the national production engine seemed to have delayed the first flight to 2025, but last March Temel Kotil, CEO of TAI, confirmed that the fighter will fly in 2023.

The jet will initially be propelled by two GE F110 engines produced under license in Turkey by TUSAŞ Engine Industries (TEI) to equip the F-16 fighters, pending the development of an home-made engine by TRMotor. The new engine will likely be based on Typhoon's EJ200 technology. In January 2017, London and Ankara signed an agreement worth over £ 100 million for the development of the new Turkish fighter equipped with Eurofighter engines. This agreement led the Turks to acquire technologies mainly from Bae Systems and Rolls Royce about the EJ200.

The TF-X will have two engines with over 9 thousand kilos of thrust each, a maximum weight of 27.2 tons, 19 meters in length, 12 in wingspan and a speed of Mach 2.

Written by Matteo Sanzani