Turkey Attempting to Construct its First Fighter Jet
This post is also available in: 
עברית (Hebrew)
Some people render fighter jets to be the superior vehicle in the military, which is no surprise. Fighter jets are highly intricate vehicles loaded with advanced equipment and weaponry. It calls for people of the highest caliber to operate them. They are complex to manufacture, which could explain why most countries do not produce them.
However, Turkey has recently put an effort to become one of the few countries to fabricate their own domestic fighter jet. The jet will be called the “TF-X” (Turkey, FIghter Experimental) and is currently being assembled by Turkish Aerospace Industries.
Turkey has been building the fighter jet for some time. It should not be forgotten that Turkey attempted to congregate with South Korea to build the fighter jet before deciding to do it on its own. Russia on the other hand, proposed to offer Turkey pieces of technology from their own fighter jets to further improve the Turkish development.
The jet is supposedly going to be 60 feet long by 39 feet wide with a maximum takeoff weight of 60,000 pounds. It will be powered by two engines rendering a maximum speed of Mach 2 with a thrust of 40,000 pounds. The jet is going to look very similar to the American Super Hornet.
It takes a great amount of time to fully construct a fighter jet. Turkey’s TF-X is intended to be ready in 2023, but the first flight is not planned until 2025. Meanwhile, the jet will not even enter service for the Turkish Air Force until 2028.
Building a fighter jet is very time consuming and takes a lot of hard work. The American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been in development for nearly twenty years and still has yet to enter full rate production while Russia, no slouch in the fighter business either, has spent nine years toiling away on the Sukhoi Su-57, according to popularmechanics.com.
Turkey currently flies 270 F-16 jets and is looking to get them replaced in the near future. They will be purchasing 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters produced by the US. This still leaves 170 available spots for the soon to be TF-X. The Turkish Air Force will be fully loaded with new and advanced aerial warfare capabilities within the next decade.
