Turkey’s Air Force in 2026: The F-16 Fleet and the Jet It Is Building

The Turkish Air Force (Türk Hava Kuvvetleri) flies one of NATO’s biggest F-16 fleets, 238 jets in FlightGlobal’s 2026 directory, plus a few dozen F-4 Phantoms more than 50 years after the type arrived. Every new fighter it has ordered is still years away.

That gap is the story. Turkey was thrown out of the F-35 program in 2019, its new Typhoons will not arrive until 2030, and its own fighter, the KAAN, is still in flight testing.

This guide ranks the combat and training jets the Air Force flies today by their fighting value as of October 2026, then covers what is on order, the drones, and the F-35 that Turkey paid for but never received.

1. F-16C/D: The Backbone

The F-16 is the Turkish Air Force. FlightGlobal counts 238 of them, 153 in the combat fleet and 85 more listed as trainers, and Turkish media in September 2026 put the total at “over 230 in service.”

Turkey is upgrading them itself. Its ÖZGÜR program, led by Turkish Aerospace, adds a domestic mission computer and ASELSAN’s MURAD AESA radar, and an ÖZGÜR F-16 has already fired a Turkish-made GÖKDOĞAN air-to-air missile using that radar.

New F-16s are stuck. The US approved 40 F-16 Block 70s in January 2024, and Turkey dropped the 79 upgrade kits that came with them and made a first payment of $1.4 billion. As of late September 2026, the production contract had still not been signed and no jets had been delivered.

2. F-4E 2020 Terminator: The Last Phantoms

Turkey is one of the few air forces still flying the F-4 Phantom, in an upgraded version called the F-4E 2020 Terminator. A single squadron, 111 Filo “Panter” at Eskişehir, still flies it.

Nobody agrees on how many are left. FlightGlobal lists 48, The War Zone reported 30 to 40 in 2024, and one 2026 estimate puts it at 19. Reporting suggests they could fly until about 2030, when the first Typhoons arrive.

Turkey is not alone. Our look at who still flies the F-4 Phantom in 2026 covers the other operators.

3. T-38 Talon and KT-1T: The Trainers on Their Way Out

Turkish fighter pilots still learn on the T-38 Talon, with 68 in service, and the Korean-built KT-1T, with 39. Turkish-designed replacements are now arriving.

The Hürjet jet trainer first flew on April 25, 2023, and the first Hürjet built for the Air Force made its maiden flight on August 30, 2026. Spain has signed for 30, with deliveries from 2028.

The turboprop Hürkuş II arrived first. The Air Force took its first two on September 28, 2026, and expects all 55 by the end of 2028.

KAAN: The Jet Turkey Is Building

The KAAN is the fighter Turkey is building for itself, and the one meant to replace its F-16s. The first prototype flew on February 21, 2024, for 13 minutes, reaching about 8,000 feet and 230 knots.

The program has moved quickly since. The Air Force signed for its first batch of 20 Block 10 jets in May 2026, a second prototype began taxi tests that July, and Turkish Aerospace says deliveries are on schedule to start in 2028.

It still depends on the United States. Early KAANs fly on General Electric F110 engines, and Congress cleared their export in July 2026; Turkey’s own TF35000 engine is targeted for 2032 and still in design.

The Typhoons: Ordered, Not Yet Arrived

On October 27, 2025, President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a deal for 20 new Eurofighter Typhoons, worth up to £8 billion ($10.7 billion). The Tranche 4+ jets carry an AESA radar and Meteor and Brimstone missiles.

Turkish pilots began flight training at RAF Coningsby in August 2026, but the jets come later: six in 2030, eight in 2031 and six in 2032, according to Turkey’s defense minister. Plans to buy 12 used Typhoons each from Qatar and Oman had produced no deliveries a year after they were announced.

The F-35 Turkey Paid For but Never Got

Turkey was a partner in the F-35 program until July 2019, when the first Trump administration removed it over its purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system. Six Turkish-owned F-35s remain in storage in the United States.

The door has creaked open since. At the NATO summit in Ankara in July 2026, President Trump called readmission “something certainly we’d consider,” but the State Department told Congress weeks later that Turkey had “not yet met these conditions.”

The Drones That Made Turkey Famous

Turkey’s best-known combat aircraft are not crewed at all. Baykar’s TB2 has export agreements with 36 countries, and the company says it has delivered 110 of its larger Akıncı drones at home and abroad.

The next step is the jet-powered Kızılelma, which first flew on December 14, 2022. In November 2025 it shot down an aerial target with a beyond-visual-range missile, which Baykar calls a first for an unmanned fighter, and serial deliveries to the Turkish armed forces were targeted for 2026.

For how these compare with the American and Chinese competition, see our ranking of the best military drones in the world.

The Rest of the Fleet: Radar Planes, Tankers and Transports

Turkey’s armed forces fly 1,101 aircraft in all, the eighth-largest military fleet in the world, according to FlightGlobal. The Air Force’s own support fleet looks like this.

The 12 C-130Js are former Royal Air Force airlifters, bought in a deal confirmed in October 2025 and worth over £550 million to the UK. They are being refurbished in Cambridge before joining the A400M fleet in Turkish service.

Turkey also hosts American airpower. Incirlik Air Base, near Adana, has been jointly used by Turkey and the US Air Force since a 1954 agreement and is home to the USAF’s 39th Air Base Wing.