Turkey's Home-Built Fighter is More than a Weapon

Here is a brief summary of the transcript: The transcript discusses Turkey's new domestically-produced 5th generation fighter jet, the TF-X/MMU/Kızılelma (named Khan). Key points: - Turkey has been developing the Khan fighter jet to reduce reliance on foreign imports and achieve military self-sufficiency. It aims to replace 270 F-16s and complement planned purchases of F-35s. - The Khan conducted its first test flight in February 2024. It aims to match modern 5th gen fighter capabilities like stealth, sensors, and networking. - Turkey was kicked out of the F-35 program in 2019 due to purchasing Russian S-400 missiles. This made the Khan's development more urgent to replace the lost F-35s. - The Khan prototype uses an older American F-110 engine, lacking optimized stealth features. Turkey aims to develop an indigenous engine. Using a foreign engine complicates stealth. - Experts consider the Khan a 4.5 generation fighter so far due to the engine. It matches 5th gen criteria except for the engine. - The Khan is very expensive currently at over $100 million per unit. Turkey needs export orders to reduce costs. - The fighter represents an important milestone for Turkey's defense industry and aspirations for self-sufficiency, even if it falls short of 5th gen promises initially.

Take a look at this domestically produced turkish delight. The new fifth generation MMU fighter jet. Its maiden flight on February 21, 2024, felt like a bold statement from the eurasian country, stating they didnt need any of your foreign technology. What were observing right now is an increasing wave of domestically designed advanced fighter jets appearing around the world. This is because countries are pursuing a concept known as military self sufficiency, where youre beholden to no foreign power for your defense. What is the Khan fighter jets mission, and what does its weapons systems tell us about their greater military strategy? What geopolitical and diplomatic factors led to its development? First of all, let me explain whats at stake here for the turkish air force and why they desire a fifth generation fighter so badly. You might not know it, but since 2015, the Turkish Air Force has been very busy. Theyve pulled off hundreds of airstrikes inside Syria and Iraq, many of them unilateral and some of them in partnership with the United States led coalition against ISIS. This map from airwars.org shows us a view of where the casualties are from these strikes along their border. These attacks have a dual mission. The first was to destroy ISIS, and the second was to target kurdish forces. With this comes the risk of return fire, though, because one of their third generation f four Phantom jets was shot down by the syrian air force. Three years later, a turkish f 16 shot down a russian Su 24 m right near their border that they claim had violated their airspace. In 2023 alone, the turkish air force executed 128 airstrikes inside northern Syria. So considering how active their air force is in the field, its clear why, from a tactical combat point of view, its important. Well also dive into why its important on a political and operational level later on, because I think many times a nations next generation aircraft program is about more than just the aircraft. Theyre about a symbol of national pride, autonomy, a diplomatic tool, and even a deterrent against war. But first, if youre concerned about your browsing security, like me, or you just want to get rid of all those annoying ads, then you want to look into ProtonVPN, a community supported VPN service thats revolutionizing online security. Doesnt it seem like every website you go to is pushing an ad for something you were just browsing or maybe even just thinking, and it really makes you curious about the security of those sites and who's getting access to your data. Protons ad free and malware free platform is trusted by over 100 million people worldwide and offers a robust suite of cybersecurity options. With ProtonVPN you can protect your browsing activity, access geoblock content without any bandwidth restrictions, all while ensuring complete privacy. Because Proton does not log or share your data with third parties. Right now, Proton is offering one month free with their twelve month plan and three months free with their 24 month plan. So if you want to get ahead of cyber criminals, just click the link in the description below and download proton VPN today and ensure your browsing activity stays private. Turkeys emergence as a player in indigenous fighter jet development has garnered significant international attention. Headlines covering the cons made in flight included words and expressions like impressive history shattering, a pivotal point, and a new titan takes to the skies. I think that gives us a little bit of a hint as to how important the success of this project is to them. Turkish Aerospace Industries Tai designed the con to reach all the modern fighter performance benchmarks, which include a maximum speed of mach 1.8 to 2.2, a service ceiling altitude height of 55,000ft, a range of 700 miles on internal fuel and a tolerance for maneuvers exerting up to nine g's. What makes a fighter a fifth generation versus a fourth? Well, it's got that low radar visibility, high agility and the ability to conduct network centric warfare. So far, only three countries in the world have successfully developed a fifth generation fighter with those capabilities, including Russia, China and the United States. Among those, only China and the US have managed to manufacture the fighters in significant numbers. So if Turkey becomes the fourth nation to develop a fifth gen fighter, that's no small feat. The only reason Turkey has ever been able to even attempt the manufacturing of one of these on their own is thanks to decades of preparing and hedging bets for this exact eventuality. In 1985, arms embargoes were levied against them for their operations on the mediterranean island of Cyprus. In response, the turkish government decided to set up the defense industry development and support administration to start investing heavily into setting up their own military industrial complex. In 2002, when the justice and Development Party came to power in Turkey, they set up the ambitious target of achieving domestic involvement in 75% of all defense procurement programs by 2023. Turkey has since become the world's 12th largest exporter of weapons, reaching $4.5 billion in 2022. Now, today, Turkey has significantly decreased its reliance on foreign military imports from around 80% in 2004 down to 20% in 2022. They're investing in their own military industrial complex to hedge against the possibility that an emergence like a Ydezenhe, a pandemic, or a world war could cut them off from supplies of weaponry. Safe to say, though, there's a lot riding on this program. To safely deliver ordinance in the modern world that's lousy with anti air defense systems, you need a fifth generation aircraft. But in order to understand Turkey's new Khan fighter jet and its capabilities, we need to quickly address the Turkey f 35 incident because this whole snafu has caused the khanda to need to take on a whole new host of responsibilities. Its a hotly debated topic even to this day. Ill try to give you both sides of the argument here. Okay, so once upon a time, Turkey was a major partner of the american fifth Gen f 35 Joint Strike Development program. They helped finance its development and provide select maintenance functions for european operators. In fact, turkish defense contractors like ISAs, the Kailh Group, and TAi helped build the f 35. Turkish maintainers had already started their training in Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Turkey had originally planned to buy a total of 100 of the f 35, as they even accepted their first f 35 in a big ceremony in June 2018, where turkish high officers swore to use them only to promote NATO's interests. But the good times cannot last forever. What goes up must come down in 2019. Less than a year later, NATO officers raised a series of concerns. Then the United States Congress voted to kick Turkey out of the f 35 program. What was their line of reasoning for that decision? Well, thats been widely debated, but one of the factors was that Turkey had purchased the Russian S 400 air defense missile system despite us objections. Why? The pressing need for air defense on Turkeys end? The conflict in Syria sees rockets and shells land inside turkish territory that has killed people regularly there. They also share a border with Iran, who's been known to be stocking up on advanced ballistic missiles, which Turkey would like to have a deterrent against. However, the United States justified the verdict of kicking Turkey out of the f 35 program by arguing that Moscow's air defense platform is inoperable with NATO systems and that it endangers NATO fighter jets by Turkey using them. What's the big deal there? This is because there is potentially one major tactical problem and issue that arises from this. There's a risk of unlicensed, unapproved transfer of us stealth technology information to Russia if they fly their turkish f 35s near the S 400s from Russia. This is because those S 400 radars could profile the f 30 five's radar signature. The way it works is that when you buy a new weapon system from Russia or anyone, it comes with service personnel from that foreign country who will help you operate it and set it up. When you get a security system or a fridge installed in your home, someone comes and they help train you on how it works. Right? Well, this is the same thing. What that means is russian maintenance personnel on the S 400 could send recorded stealth data back to Russia. Hypothetically, why did Turkey buy the S 400 from Russia instead of the Patriot missile system from the United States? This too is complicated, but essentially Turkey tried to buy the Patriot system several times, but the US either refused to sell them or wanted to send an outdated version. There's also a series of negotiations where the United States claims that Turkey was requiring a transfer of proprietary information on how to manufacture the air defense missiles in their country, which was a no go for the US. There are other potential reasons floated. Possibly the us government didnt like the idea of Turkey using the f 35 against kurdish forces that theyre kind of allied with. Turkey strongly disagrees with the US position. They say that theres no conflict between the two systems, that theyve fulfilled their obligations, and that their suspension is unwarranted. But long before the drama, back in 2010, the Turkey Defense Industry executive committee made the call to develop an advanced aircraft domestically. This aircraft was in the works before any of those issues. They saw it as a necessary step to replace the 270 American made f 16s in their inventory and it would eventually complement the f 35s that they planned on eventually getting. According to John Lakes Great article that he wrote for Times Aerospace, the new MMU was intended to be the cheaper, less capable element in the high low mixed, meaning that it was supposed to be better than the f 16, but not quite an f 35. Originally, an initial funding of 20 million was designated in the initial design phase. From there, they unveiled three potential concepts. The first, dubbed the fx one, featured twin engines and shared a lot of similarities with the american f 22 Raptor. The f 22 should be asking for a paternity test. Everything went to hell when the disagreement happened between the US and Turkey over the f 35. And so the vision of the new aircraft that would become the Khan as a complement to the f 35 had to be completely shifted. This turned everything upside down. The khan now had to rise from the chorus to become a main character. No pressure. Production started in November 2021. Two years later, in 2023, the khan was first shown to the public for the first time. Turkish president Erdogan declared that the Khan embodied a 10 zero year old dream that the nation had been pursuing since the foundation of the republic. Its not surprising that Turkeys President Erdogan chose to name it the khan, the turkish word for ruler or king of kings. You dont see presidents taking rides out in new ifvs or testing out new Humvees. You usually see them testing out fighter jets and primary infantry firearms. They test out the most visible symbols of their nations firepower. When looking at the Khan depart from the airfield command north of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, onlookers were thinking how impressive it was that Turkey was able to go from unveiling to first flight in less than a year. It was a symbolic day for the country because it marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of modern Turkey. Theres an aspect to advanced aircraft development thats tied to a nations prestige and international standing because being able to produce a cutting edge military technology can elevate a nations status in the global community and strengthen diplomatic with allies. Even you cant dismiss weapons programs as purely about firepower or combat. Theyre a modern day diplomatic tool as well. This is part of the reason why so many try to tear down the american f 35 program because it would be an embarrassment to the US if the f 35, a symbol of their power, turned out to not be as great as they claimed. Some experts see the con as another manifestation of the deterioration of Turkeys relationship with the United States. This includes disagreements over Turkeys military operations in Syria, notably targeting kurdish forces as well as their closer ties with Russia, which from NATOs perspective is concerning. Initial images from the inaugural flight depict the jet in a fresh perspective, revealing its overall size and internal capacity more clearly and giving us more of an idea about the fighter jet. With a wingspan of 46ft, its about 20ft high and 49ft in lengthen. These include the same lightweight low radar reflective composite carbon thermoplastic coating Turkey develop for the f 35 jets. Firepower includes brand spanking new reconnaissance pods and standoff range precision guided weapons such as a NATO standard missiles like the meteor with a range of over 200 km. There's a GPS guided precision munition on there. And there's the indigenous turkish weapons like the two air to air missiles, the Bozdagon for short range and the Ghaktodan for medium range. Air to air missiles are a lot different than your air to ground missiles because they're designed to take out relatively more fragile aircraft than armor. Other turkish delicacies are the 17 miles range standoff cruise missile and the mam anti tank missiles, meaning smart micro munition in Turkish. The main under fuselage bay has a capacity of four longer range air to air missiles or air to ground weapons. And next to the engine we find two small internal cheek bays that allow for four short range air to air missiles. I think what these weapon systems indicate is that Turkey is looking for a fighter that has longer range weapon systems, more standoff distance, and the jet is a multirole fighter so it can attack both ground and air targets. For context, the f 35 has a payload of between 15,018 thousand pounds approximately. But the con aircraft might be more comparable to the f 22 that has a capacity of 5000 pounds and is more of an air superiority plane. The con, like the stealth aircraft, has different modes including low observability stealth where it can carry reportedly about 1000 pound payload and its non stealthy mode. Ive seen numbers floated online of up to 7000 pounds. But of course, take this with a grain of salt because this aircraft is still in its prototyping phase. According to John Lake of Times Aerospace quote, the MMU can also carry the compressed carriage sage SoMJ cruise missile, which was originally designed for that internal carriage of the f 35 a. Its unclear at this point if they can match the advanced sensor data fusion and interoperability that are characteristic of fifth gen fighters like the f 35. Whether it can or not isnt the entire point though, because theres other considerations like the economic benefits that come from even attempting to build a fifth gen fighter. And the lessons learned are valuable in and of themselves. Developing and manufacturing advanced fighter jets can stimulate economic growth by creating high skilled jobs, fostering innovation in related industries. It can also generate revenue from exports of those fighter jets. Will the con be able to incorporate hallmark technologies like artificial intelligence? Can it compete with its american or european counterparts? Some experts have compared it to being on par with like the south korean kf 21 jet. Theyve referred to it as a 4.5 generation aircraft and well see why that is in a second. Previous images of the aircraft showed a very intriguing sensor setup of what appeared to be a dedicated infrared search and track sensor system in front of the cockpit and a multi purpose electro optical targeting system underneath the forward fuselage. A close inspection of the test flight images, however, show that those systems had been removed. Will this edit be permanent? Well, we'll have to wait and see, but most accounts by most experts claim the Mmucon reached fifth gen criteria, except for one important aspect, which is its engine. The prototype is packed with the general electric f 110 turbofan engine, the same engine that powers the fourth gen f 16, as well as the older f 15 Eagle and f 14 Tomcat. The decision to use this engine likely comes from the scarcity of accessible state of the art propulsion technology offered by american and european defense companies, as well as deteriorating relations between Turkey and NATO and sanctions imposed by the US on turkish entities. Its worth noting that these american f 110 GE 129 turbofans are the ones that come with standard exhaust nozzles and therefore arent optimized for stealth because thrust cant be vectored away from radar beams. So the problem with the engine is that it complicates stealth. However, there have been discussions of using other foreign engines including a russian power plant or a partnership with Rolls Royce of the United Kingdom. But thanks to Moscows invasion of Ukraine, the first option is unlikely for the time being and although Turkey had already signed a letter of intent with the Brits, the plan fell through. It looks like there was an issue with intellectual property rights and technology transfer. This is why Turkey is looking to develop an indigenous engine to power the Khan. This is Turkeys bet developing their own weapons to gain independence from western allies who have imposed what they consider unfair sanctions of them. Drones are one thing, but heavy weaponry is a whole different market. Currently, the Con is ridiculously expensive. Its estimated to have a per tail flyaway cost exceeds $100 million. Currently this makes it far more expensive than any of the russian chinese alternatives as well as many western platforms. To reduce unit costs and expand total orders, Turkey needs to secure export orders and to do so they need to lower production costs and be more competitive. Turkey has already tried to sell jets to foreign militaries, but only Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine have shown any real interest. Other established clients of the turkish combat drones such as Indonesia and the UAE are waiting for the prices to fall down. The Tai Khan fighter jet stands as a prototype, symbolizing both Turkeys aspirations and the evolving defense market landscape. While it has a considerable journey ahead to become a fully operational fighter jet, it represents a significant milestone in turkish military history and engineering. Even if it falls short of its initial promises. It underscores Turkeys defense industries resilience and determination over many decades. Now, Turkey aims to position itself as a key player in global defense sector, achieving technological self sufficiency and asserting military autonomy while striving for global leadership. Indigenous fifth generation aircraft programs are an important part of a national pride because they demonstrate a nations technological prowess and engineering capabilities. It showcases the country's ability to innovate, design cutting edge technologies and compete on the global stage and aerospace industry. They're a symbol of sovereignty and independence. However, the true impact of the con on these objectives will only be evident after many many years from now. Stay tuned. Spare parts army. Until next time, I'm Chris Cappy signing off. And remember, we just dropped a ton of new merch. We got our lethality shirt, our JDAm shirt, all your favorite military buzzwords. Check it out if you get a chance.