Turkey is Now Everywhere: Erdoğan

Turkey will be one of the five countries in the world to produce 5th generation fighter jets with the national fighter aircraft 'KAAN'. Today, we are witnessing a historic moment in the fields of defense and aviation.

This was announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during the 'Century of the Future' event organized by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in the capital Ankara, aimed at showcasing its aircraft, including KAAN, reported the Anadolu agency.

'Turkey is now everywhere—on land, at sea and underwater, in the air and in space,' said Erdoğan. He noted that this aircraft will also replace the American F-16 fighters currently in the Turkish armed forces. 'KAAN' will be equipped with local munitions.

The aircraft, for which the project started in 2016, was launched in March. The 21-meter-long aircraft can develop a maximum speed of 1.8 Mach thanks to its twin engines, which can generate 29,000 pounds (13,000 kilograms) of thrust.

According to Turkish media, KAAN has several features such as situational awareness, optimized pilot workload, combat damage detection, next-generation mission systems, low observability, precision strikes, and an internal weapons bay.