HÜRKUŞ and HÜRJET Split the Work of Training Türkiye’s Fighter Pilots

A student pilot’s first solo and a supersonic conversion sortie have almost nothing in common, and no single aircraft handles both jobs well. Air forces split the work instead. Türkiye now covers that split with two aircraft from the same factory, the HÜRKUŞ turboprop for the early phases and the HÜRJET jet for the advanced end, both designed and built by Turkish Aerospace (TUSAŞ) in Ankara.

The two Turkish trainer aircraft are often mentioned in the same breath, which invites the wrong question. HÜRKUŞ versus HÜRJET is not a contest. One begins where the other stops, and understanding where that handover sits explains most of the design choices on both airframes.

Why One Trainer Is Never Enough

Military pilot training runs in phases. Screening weeds out candidates cheaply. Basic and intermediate flying teaches instruments, formation, aerobatics and navigation. Then comes advanced jet training and lead-in fighter training, usually shortened to LIFT, where students learn to think at jet speeds, handle high G and manage sensors before they ever touch a frontline fighter.

The economics are blunt. A turboprop flight hour costs a fraction of a jet hour, so every syllabus item that can be pushed down onto the cheaper aircraft saves money across a pilot’s entire career. The trick is building a turboprop capable enough to absorb those tasks, and a jet honest enough about fast-jet handling that the step up to a fighter feels small.

That is the division of labour behind Türkiye’s pair. The Turkish Air Force has flown its basic syllabus on KT-1T turboprops and its advanced phase on the Northrop T-38, an American design first delivered in 1979. HÜRKUŞ and HÜRJET exist to take over both ends of that pipeline with aircraft Türkiye controls, builds and can export. Conversion training does not always end at home either, as the plan for Turkish pilots to train on the Eurofighter Typhoon in the UK shows, but the foundation phases are moving onto national types.

HÜRKUŞ Flies the First Hours

Named after Vecihi Hürkuş, the aviator who built the first Turkish-designed aircraft, the HÜRKUŞ made its maiden flight in August 2013. It is a tandem two-seat turboprop in the same class as the PC-9 and T-6, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68T delivering around 1,600 shaft horsepower. The instructor sits behind and above the student under a single-piece canopy, and the cockpit is pressurized for work at altitude.

The family has grown in layers. HÜRKUŞ-A, the baseline version, earned EASA civil type certification in 2016. HÜRKUŞ-B added military avionics, including glass-cockpit displays and a head-up display, so that a student’s instrument habits transfer directly to jets.

The newest member is the one that matters for the future pipeline. HÜRKUŞ-II is a deep redesign of the airframe that sheds roughly 500 kilograms of empty weight through wider use of composites, with a reported maximum cruise speed of 288 knots. In September 2026 it became the first aircraft ever certified through Türkiye’s own national military airworthiness system, a process that closed out 1,790 technical requirements and 153 separate tests. Our report on the HÜRKUŞ-II military type certificate covers that campaign in detail. For the training system, the certificate means the turboprop side of the pipeline now rests on an aircraft cleared entirely by Turkish authorities.

HÜRJET Picks Up at the Jet Stage

The HÜRJET answers a different question, which is how to prepare pilots for aircraft like the F-16 and the upcoming KAAN without burning fighter hours to do it. It is a tandem-seat, single-engine jet built around the General Electric F404-GE-102, the same engine family that powers the F/A-18 Hornet and South Korea’s T-50, producing roughly 17,700 pounds of thrust in afterburner. That gives the HÜRJET genuinely supersonic performance, with Turkish Aerospace quoting a top speed in the Mach 1.4 class.

Supersonic capability matters more in a trainer than it might appear. A student who has handled transonic acceleration, high-G manoeuvring and jet-rate decision making in a two-seater arrives at a fighter squadron needing far less remedial work. The HÜRJET’s cockpit is also built for embedded training, meaning simulated radar contacts, threats and weapons can be injected into the displays so students fight synthetic adversaries without any live support aircraft.

The program has moved quickly by trainer standards. The first prototype flew on 25 April 2023, a second joined the test fleet in late 2024, and on 30 August 2026 the first production-standard aircraft, destined for the Turkish Air Force, completed an 18-minute maiden flight from Ankara. We covered that sortie when the first production HÜRJET flew for the Turkish Air Force. Deliveries are targeted for the end of 2026, with the T-38 fleet first in line for replacement and the Turkish Stars aerobatic team expected to follow onto the type.

The Two Aircraft Side by Side

The table understates one point worth spelling out. The two aircraft are not just different sizes of the same idea. The HÜRKUŞ is optimized for cost per teaching point at low and medium speeds, while the HÜRJET is optimized for fidelity to the fighter cockpit. A pilot moving between them crosses the widest single gap in the syllabus, which is exactly where air forces want a purpose-built aircraft rather than a compromise.

Both Airframes Moonlight as Light Attack

Trainers sell better when they can fight, and TUSAŞ has armed both designs. The HÜRKUŞ-C carries weapons on underwing stations and has been displayed with an electro-optical targeting turret, pitching it at the armed overwatch and counter-insurgency market occupied by aircraft like the A-29 Super Tucano. For air arms that cannot justify fast jets, a turboprop that can train pilots on weekdays and carry guided munitions when needed is an attractive dual-use buy.

The HÜRJET’s armed configuration aims higher. With an afterburning engine and supersonic airframe, a light combat version sits in the territory of the FA-50, able to fly point defence and strike missions for smaller air forces. TUSAŞ has shown the aircraft with external weapons at exhibitions, though the trainer mission remains the program’s anchor and the configuration Türkiye itself is buying first.

What the Spanish Order Says About the Concept

The strongest outside endorsement of the HÜRJET so far came from a NATO air force with decades of jet training experience. In October 2025 Spain’s Council of Ministers approved a plan worth around 3.7 billion euros to replace its F-5M advanced trainers with up to 45 HÜRJETs, and a memorandum of understanding followed in December. Under the arrangement Airbus Defence and Space leads the Spanish training system as prime contractor while Turkish Aerospace supplies the aircraft, with the first two airframes to be adapted at Getafe and deliveries running from around 2028. Where that deal positions the aircraft against the T-7, T-50 and M-346 is a question we examined separately in our look at where HÜRJET fits in the advanced jet trainer market.

For Türkiye, the sequencing now runs in both directions at once. HÜRKUŞ-II enters service carrying the country’s first homegrown military type certificate, the first production HÜRJETs reach the Turkish Air Force from the end of 2026, and the students who start on the turboprop in the next few years will be the first generation to complete the entire pipeline, from first solo to supersonic, without leaving a Turkish-designed cockpit until they strap into an F-16 or, eventually, a KAAN.