TAI's first Hürjet supersonic jet trainer for Turkish Air Force completes maiden flight on Victory Day.

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) performed the maiden sortie of the first customer-configured Hürjet serial-production jet trainer for the Turkish Air Force on August 30, 2026, logging an 18-minute flight on Türkiye's Victory Day. This operational milestone transitions the indigenous aircraft program from prototype envelope expansion to standardized manufacturing and series production. The flight establishes the baseline airframe standard required to replace aging T-38M trainers, fulfill Turkish Stars flight demonstration roles, and serve upcoming export commitments, including Spain's 30-unit order.

The first serial-production Hürjet trainer completed an 18-minute maiden flight powered by a single General Electric F404-GE-104 engine, marking the shift from prototype evaluations to repeatable manufacturing standards. Featuring a Mach 1.4 maximum speed, 3,402 kg payload capacity across seven hardpoints, and digital fly-by-wire flight controls, the platform validates the standardized configuration designated for initial Turkish Air Force deliveries and subsequent export integration.

Related topic: Spain to replace US F-5 jets with 45 new Turkish Hürjet light attack aircraft

On August 30, 2026, the first production Hürjet built for the Turkish Air Force flew for 18 minutes, marking the transition from testing prototypes to testing aircraft that will actually be delivered to operational units. (Picture source: TAI)

On August 30, 2026, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI/TUSAŞ) flew the first Hürjet jet trainer/light combat aircraft manufactured for the Turkish Air Force, during an 18-minute sortie that occurred on Türkiye's 104th anniversary of Victory Day. The flight came 1,223 days after the first prototype's first flight on April 25, 2023, and 656 days after the second prototype, P2, first flew on November 12, 2024. The Hürjet development itself began in 2017, meaning the program required nine years to progress from project launch to the first flight of an aircraft manufactured for customer delivery. The Turkish Air Force's current procurement is 16 aircraft, originally structured around four Block 0s and twelve additional Block 1s. TUSAŞ is establishing serial production for a fleet that will extend beyond the Turkish requirement, as Spain has contracted for 30 Hürjets and authorized acquisition of as many as 45.

The Hürjet is a two-seat, single-engine supersonic trainer and light combat aircraft measuring 13.6 m long, 9.5 m across the wings and 4.1 m high, with a 25 m² wing, seven external stations, 3,402 kg of payload and one F404-GE-104 engine producing 53.07 kN without afterburner and 78.7 kN with afterburner. Its published performance includes Mach 1.4 maximum speed, a 1,960-km range, a 14,000-m ceiling, a 246-m/s climb rate, and +8/-3 G structural limits. These Hürjets will do more than just replace the T-38M advanced trainer, with the introduction of fighter fundamentals, aggressor training, Turkish Stars operations, and eventually armed missions, while Spain will use its aircraft to replace 19 F-5Ms at Ala 23, Talavera la Real. With the August 30 flight, the Hürjet no longer needs to demonstrate only that the basic design can achieve its required flight envelope.

P1 and P2 already performed that function through a campaign that included transonic and supersonic sorties, high-altitude flight, formation work, Turkish Stars demonstrations, and formation flying with the Anka-3 unmanned combat aircraft. Earlier program figures credited the two prototypes with 340 test flights and nearly 260 flight hours, while later totals exceeded 500 test flights as development continued. P2 also incorporated physical changes from the original prototype, including a larger forward nose volume suitable for radar installation, modified air intakes, a revised forward fuselage, and wingtip missile rails, while further horizontal tail changes appeared on the production aircraft. P2's first sortie lasted 26 minutes and reached 481 km/h at 3,048 m, after which it joined the broader envelope expansion campaign.

The Turkish Air Force's first Hürjet introduces a different requirement because its dimensions, center of gravity, flight control software, structural tolerances, engine installation, wiring, avionics, and aerodynamic surfaces must reproduce the characteristics established during prototype testing without extensive aircraft-specific adjustment. This is the transition from development engineering to configuration control. A production discrepancy affecting even one repeated component can propagate through multiple aircraft: at two aircraft per month, a modification discovered after six months of output could potentially require inspection or modification of twelve airframes. The August 30 flight therefore begins the validation of the manufacturing standard that will be reproduced across Turkish Block 0 and Block 1 aircraft and subsequently adapted for Spain.

The Hürjet's physical characteristics show how TAI has positioned the aircraft between a dedicated trainer and a light combat aircraft. The airframe measures 13.6 x 9.5 x 4.1 m and has a 25 m² wing, giving a length-to-span ratio of 1.43 and a relatively compact footprint for a supersonic trainer. Maximum external payload is 3,402 kg, distributed over seven stations consisting of four underwing stations, two wingtip positions and one centerline station. With a maximum takeoff weight cited at 13,000 kg, these maximum external stores correspond to 26.2% of MTOW. The F404-GE-104 produces 78.7 kN in afterburner, allowing for a maximum speed of Mach 1.4 and a 246-m/s climb figure, which corresponds to 14.76 km of altitude gain per minute if treated as an instantaneous constant rate rather than a sustained climb throughout the envelope. The +8/-3 G limit gives a total structural acceleration envelope of 11 G between positive and negative limits, and sustained maneuvering has been associated with 6.3 G at 4,572 m.

These are operationally relevant training characteristics because the aircraft can introduce students to high-G energy management, supersonic acceleration, radar and weapons procedures, formation maneuvering, and fighter-type cockpit workload before they enter F-16 conversion. The aircraft also incorporates digital fly-by-wire flight controls, high-angle-of-attack controllability, an auxiliary power unit, a glass cockpit with head-up display, helmet-mounted display compatibility, night-vision compatibility, datalinks, aerial-refueling provisions, and embedded tactical and live-virtual-constructive training functions. The Hürjet is therefore intended to reproduce not merely the speed of a combat aircraft but the sensor, display, datalink and tactical workload encountered later in fighter training. Türkiye's initial 16-aircraft procurement is small relative to both the fleet the Hürjet is intended to replace and the production capacity TAI is establishing.

The Turkish Air Force operates a much larger T-38 inventory, projected at 68 airframes in 2026, while the Hürjet is also intended eventually to replace the NF-5A/B 2000 used by the Turkish Stars. Sixteen Hürjets therefore cannot constitute a one-for-one replacement of the existing advanced-training inventory, making subsequent procurement necessary if the aircraft is to assume the complete T-38M mission over time. TAI is establishing an initial capacity for two aircraft per month, equivalent to 24 annually, and company leadership has also identified three aircraft per month as a later objective, which would raise theoretical annual output to 36. The company has referred to production-line preparations sized for 100 aircraft. At 24 aircraft annually, Türkiye's current order equals eight months of steady-state output, Spain's 30-aircraft contract equals 15 months, and the combined 46-aircraft firm requirement equals 23 months.

If Spain eventually acquires 45, the Turkish-Spanish total rises to 61 aircraft, equivalent to 30.5 months at two per month or 20.3 months at three per month. Those calculations represent assembly capacity rather than delivery schedules because every completed aircraft still requires ground testing, engine runs, taxi testing, production flight verification, discrepancy correction, and customer acceptance. They nevertheless illustrate the industrial change created by Spain: the current Turkish order alone is insufficient to keep a 24-aircraft-per-year line occupied for a full year, whereas the combined Turkish and Spanish requirement creates more than two years of theoretical production before additional Turkish, naval, or export aircraft are counted. The F404 engine is still the most obvious externally sourced item in that production equation.

The Hürjet uses one F404-GE-104 with 53.07 kN dry thrust and 78.7 kN afterburning thrust, and the engine family has already accumulated decades of service on several aircraft, such as the KAI T-50 Golden Eagle, the Boeing-Saab T-7A Red Hawk, the HAL Tejas Mk 1 and Mk 1A, as well as the legacy F/A-18A-D Hornet. This gives the Hürjet access to an engine family already associated with trainers and fighters rather than requiring a parallel clean-sheet propulsion program. GE Aerospace and Turkish Aerospace consequently formalized their cooperation in Istanbul on May 5, 2026, following agreements associated with Farnborough 2024 and IDEF 2025, while TEI provides an existing Turkish industrial connection to GE dating to its establishment in 1985. The cooperation includes local engine-related industrial activity, with earlier Hürjet arrangements covering local assembly and maintenance, repair, and overhaul of the F404.

The numerical requirement becomes important once production accelerates. Two aircraft per month require 24 installation engines annually; three aircraft per month require 36. A 46-aircraft Turkish-Spanish fleet requires 46 installed engines before any spare engine pool is created, while a 61-aircraft fleet requires 61. If a spare pool equivalent to 10% of installed engines were eventually maintained, those two fleet sizes would require five to six additional engines respectively. The engine therefore removes development risk but not supply risk: fuselage production at 24 or 36 aircraft annually cannot translate into equivalent deliveries unless F404 supply, overhaul capacity and spare engine stocks scale at the same rate. Spain introduces a larger and more complex production requirement than the first Turkish order. Madrid's 30 contracted aircraft exceed Türkiye's 16 by 14 aircraft, or 87.5%, and represent 65.2% of the current combined 46-aircraft requirement.

Spain's authorization for as many as 45 aircraft would increase the combined fleet to 61, of which Spain would account for 73.8%. The aircraft will replace 19 F-5Ms at Ala 23, Talavera la Real, meaning the 30-aircraft firm purchase represents eleven more aircraft than the current F-5M fleet and a 57.9% increase before accounting for differences in availability, training requirements and reserve aircraft. Airbus' scope includes the acquisition of 30 Turkish-built trainers, conversion with Spanish equipment, establishment of an Aircraft Conversion Centre, refurbishment of the Fighter and Attack School training center at Talavera la Real, and integrated operation and maintenance services. Spain has additionally allocated €1.04 billion in industrial pre-financing across 2025-2029, with €353 million in 2025, €173 million in 2026, €183 million in 2027, €183 million in 2028 and €148 million in 2029.

Initial aircraft are scheduled from 2028, with training activity at Talavera la Real beginning in the 2029-2030 period and the fully Spanish configuration following from 2031. Conversion is scheduled from the second half of 2031 through 2035. The first two aircraft will be converted at Airbus Getafe and the remaining 28 at the new Spanish Aircraft Conversion Centre. Another program outline divides the Saeta II into a first phase beginning in 2028 with 21 aircraft, including one aircraft used to validate Spanish components, followed by conversion of the complete 30-aircraft fleet to the Spanish standard during 2031-2035. The armed Hürjet configuration, for its part, has seven stations and 3,402 kg of maximum external payload, permitting a mixed load of air-to-air missiles, guided bombs, stand-off weapons, external fuel or targeting equipment, while the wingtip positions allow short-range air-to-air weapons to be carried without occupying the four principal underwing stations.

The enlarged nose introduced with P2 creates additional volume for a radar, and the Hürjet combat development has been associated with an Aselsan Murad-family AESA radar, the Aselpod targeting equipment, the Bozdoğan within-visual-range and the Gökdoğan beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles. Other weapons linked to the aircraft include the SOM, the HGK and KGK guided weapons, the Teber-82, the Miniature Bomb, the Cirit, the Bozok and Mam-series munitions. Each weapon still requires mechanical and electrical integration, mission-computer software, captive-carry trials, vibration and flutter testing, separation testing, and live release or firing before it becomes an operational store. This creates a measurable distinction between the trainer now entering production and a combat-ready Hürjet.

An operational light fighter additionally requires radar search and track modes, identification capability, targeting, electronic warfare, radar-warning and countermeasure systems, tactical datalinks, and validated weapon interfaces. Close air support and armed air policing are therefore technically less dependent on changing the basic airframe than on completing this integration chain. In short, the trainer can enter Turkish service while combat system qualification continues because student training does not require every planned missile, bomb, or radar mode to be operational. Naval development creates an even larger structural divergence. TAI began work in 2026 on a carrier Hürjet intended for both STOBAR and CATOBAR operations, with Turkish plans connecting the aircraft to the future MUGEM aircraft carrier.

Arrested recovery requires reinforced landing gear, a tailhook installation, and reinforced fuselage load paths capable of transferring the deceleration forces generated when the aircraft is stopped within roughly 100 m, while carrier operation adds corrosion protection, repeated high-sink-rate landing requirements, low-speed approach changes, and shipboard maintenance constraints. CATOBAR operation further adds catapult launch loads that the land-based trainer does not encounter. The resulting industrial challenge is therefore quantifiable.

TAI is moving from two prototypes to at least 46 production aircraft, potentially 61 for the two confirmed customer countries, a stated production objective of 24 aircraft per year with 36 per year subsequently contemplated, at least one F404 for every aircraft, Spanish conversion of 30 aircraft through 2035, Turkish Block 0 and Block 1 production, continued combat-system integration and a structurally modified naval derivative. The August 30 aircraft is subsequently the first airframe on which these issues converge because it must prove that the configuration developed through three years of prototype flying can now be manufactured, tested, corrected, and accepted repeatedly at a rate measured in aircraft per month rather than individual experimental sorties.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

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