Turkish Air Force Pilots Begin Eurofighter Typhoon Flight Training in the UK

Turkish Air Force pilots move into live flight training on the Eurofighter Typhoon in the United Kingdom on September 7, the first operational step under Ankara’s £8 billion ($10.7 billion) deal for 20 new-build Typhoons signed last October.

Ministry of National Defence spokesman Rear Admiral Zeki Aktürk confirmed the timeline at the ministry’s weekly press briefing, saying an undisclosed number of Turkish pilots completed ground and terminology instruction in August and will now begin an eight-month flight-training course, followed by three months of instructor-pilot qualification. Additional pilots and technical personnel will rotate through UK training pipelines “for years to come,” Aktürk said, under an arrangement in which the Royal Air Force has agreed to train 10 Turkish Air Force pilots and roughly 100 ground crew.

Update, September 21: Maintenance Teams Inspect UK Facilities

A Turkish delegation inspected Eurofighter Typhoon maintenance facilities at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire from September 15 to 17, the Ministry of National Defence said. The team, drawn from the Air Force Command’s Aircraft Maintenance Working Group and the General Directorate of Military Factories, reviewed the base’s sustainment infrastructure alongside Royal Air Force counterparts as part of the same Typhoon procurement project that sent the first Turkish pilots into flight training earlier in September. The ministry described the visit as a step toward “planning maintenance and sustainment processes, ensuring compatibility of technical infrastructure and strengthening bilateral cooperation” between the two air forces.

No maintenance contract value, facility location in Türkiye or manpower numbers were disclosed. The visit is a working-level technical exchange rather than a new agreement, and it points to Ankara building a support ecosystem in parallel with pilot training before the first Turkish-operated Typhoons arrive from 2030.

An £8 Billion Bridge to KAAN

Türkiye and the UK signed the Eurofighter contract on October 27, 2025, during British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to Ankara, covering 20 new-production Tranche 4 aircraft. The deal, worth up to £8 billion, makes Türkiye the type’s tenth operator and ranks among the largest export orders in the Eurofighter programme’s history; UK officials have said it will help sustain around 20,000 jobs across the consortium’s British supply chain. First deliveries to the Turkish Air Force are expected from 2030.

For Ankara, the purchase is less about prestige than about filling a widening capability gap. Türkiye was removed from the F-35 programme in 2019 after it acquired the Russian S-400 air defence system, and while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump have discussed the possibility of Türkiye rejoining, no agreement has been finalized. Meanwhile, Turkish Aerospace’s own KAAN fifth-generation fighter remains years from serial deliveries, and the programme’s indigenous TF35000 engine is not now expected to begin testing until around 2032 — four years later than the company’s previous public target.

Against that backdrop, the Typhoon buy gives the Turkish Air Force a modern, combat-proven type to help replace its oldest F-4 and early-block F-16 airframes while KAAN matures and while HÜRJET takes over the advanced jet-trainer role. Türkiye Today has reported that Ankara’s broader Eurofighter plan could eventually grow the fleet to as many as 56 jets within four years, a figure said to include secondhand aircraft transferred from Qatar alongside the 20 new-build jets — though neither Ankara nor London has confirmed the scope or terms of any such addition, and it should be treated as a reported ambition rather than a signed order.

Training Comes First

The ministry has been explicit that pilot and maintainer training is being sequenced ahead of aircraft delivery — officials have previously described it as a “training first” approach. Turkish pilots earmarked for the Typhoon spent August in classroom and simulator instruction on RAF procedures and Typhoon systems, with the September 7 start date marking their move into live flying at a UK Typhoon operational conversion unit. Training an initial cadre of instructors in Britain, rather than waiting for jets to arrive in Türkiye, is intended to let the Turkish Air Force stand up its own conversion syllabus more quickly once deliveries begin in 2030.

Why It Matters Beyond Türkiye

The order matters to the wider Eurofighter consortium as much as to Türkiye. Typhoon’s production lines have leaned heavily on export orders in recent years, and a Turkish order of this size helps secure the programme’s industrial base across the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain into the next decade. For NATO, a large Turkish Typhoon fleet also adds a European-built fighter type to the alliance’s southern flank at a moment when Ankara has been pushing for a bigger role in European defence cooperation.

For Türkiye’s own defence planners, the Typhoon purchase is consistently framed as a bridge rather than a substitute for indigenous programmes. SSB and Turkish Aerospace officials have described the aircraft as covering the capability gap until KAAN reaches volume production later this decade, with the Turkish Air Force’s mid-2030s fighter fleet expected to combine KAAN, Typhoon and a Viper-modernized F-16 fleet — the upgrade programme that resumed after Washington unblocked F-16-related sales to Türkiye in 2024. Turkish defence and aerospace exports have continued to climb through this transition period, a sign that the industry’s export-facing programmes are advancing even as some domestic procurement schedules have slipped.

No details on individual pilot names, squadron assignments or the exact size of the first training cohort have been released, consistent with the ministry’s usual practice on personnel movements.