A stealth fighter’s first taxi run is not glamorous. It rolls out of the hangar, creeps down the taxiway under its own power, and stops. But for Turkey, the sight of its second Kaan prototype trundling along the apron at Ankara on Jul. 31, 2026 was a big deal — the last major step before an all-new, production-shaped stealth fighter takes to the air.

The aircraft is designated P1, and Turkish Aerospace Industries released video of it moving under power for the first time. Officials say it could fly before the end of the year. If it does, Turkey moves a long way closer to something only a handful of nations possess: a home-grown fifth-generation fighter.

Why P1 matters more than P0

Turkey has flown a Kaan before — the P0 demonstrator lifted off in February 2024. But P0 was a proof of concept. P1, and its sister ship P2, are “production-representative” airframes: built to reflect the fighter Turkey actually intends to field, with the lessons of the first prototype baked in.

The differences are visible. Compared with P0, P1 has a cleaner, more aerodynamic fuselage, reshaped and repositioned engine intakes, and wider spacing between its two engines. Most tellingly, it carries a prominent forward-looking sensor above the nose — a combined infrared search-and-track and targeting system for spotting and tracking threats without radiating a single radar pulse.

Taxi testing is where an aircraft’s brakes, steering, and ground handling get checked at steadily rising speeds. It is the bridge between a jet that exists and a jet that flies. TAI chief executive Mehmet Demiroğlu, speaking at the Farnborough Airshow, was careful not to promise a date.

The engine problem hanging over it all

For now, Kaan flies on the American General Electric F110-GE-129, the same engine family that powers late-model F-16s, assembled under licence in Turkey but still bound by US export controls. That dependence is exactly what Ankara wants to escape. Turkey is pushing hard on an indigenous engine, the TEI TF35000, intended to power later production batches and free the programme from Western leverage.

The politics are impossible to separate from the airframe. Turkey started down this road in earnest after Washington threw it out of the F-35 Lightning II programme in 2019, punishment for buying the Russian S-400 air-defence system. Kaan is both a genuine fighter programme and a statement: a NATO member building its own stealth jet rather than waiting for permission to buy someone else’s.

Close, but not airborne yet

Taxi trials are not flight, and stealth-fighter programmes have a habit of slipping. But the pace is real — Turkey wants both P1 and P2 flying by the end of 2026 to run their test campaigns in parallel. For a country that was locked out of the world’s dominant fifth-generation fighter just seven years ago, a Kaan rolling down the runway under its own power is a pointed reply.

Sources: Turkish Aerospace Industries; The War Zone; Quwa; Daily Sabah; Defense Arabia; The Aviationist.