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Türkiye’s Hürjet Aircraft Achieves Key Cold-Weather Readiness Milestone in Subzero Winter Trials.
Türkiye’s Hürjet jet trainer completed extreme cold-weather testing in Erzurum. The results matter because winter operability is a real readiness requirement for air forces that train and deploy year-round, not a brochure feature.
On January 24, 2026, Türkiye’s domestically developed Hürjet successfully completed a round of extreme cold-weather trials in the eastern province of Erzurum, as reported by Anadolu Agency. Conducted in one of the country’s harshest winter environments, the campaign tested the aircraft’s ability to operate, start, taxi, and sustain flight operations in subzero temperatures. Defense officials described the tests as part of a broader push to validate the jet under conditions that mirror real-world basing and training demands.
The cold-weather trials in Erzurum evaluated the Hürjet’s performance across ground and flight operations in subzero conditions representative of real-world air force basing environments (Picture Source: Anadolu Agency)
Two Hürjet prototypes were deployed to Erzurum under the coordination of the Presidency of Defence Industries, combining ground trials with follow-on flight activity to verify behavior in severe winter conditions. This type of milestone typically reduces one of the most common adoption risks for new aircraft programs: the gap between nominal performance and real-world dispatch reliability when temperatures, wind, and icing stress the entire operating cycle from start-up to recovery. Public reporting linked the Erzurum sequence not only to low-temperature exposure down to minus 21 °C, but also to concurrent high-altitude validation enabled by local geography, with flight activity following ground trials to confirm systems performance.
Cold-weather qualification is not only about “starting the engine in low temperature.” In practice, it is a systems check across the aircraft’s operational chain: cold-soak effects on batteries and electronics, changes in hydraulic responsiveness, braking and anti-skid behavior on contaminated surfaces, sensor stability, and the broader question of whether maintenance actions remain predictable when equipment, fluids, and seals are pushed toward their limits. When these factors are not validated early, winter operations can impose hidden penalties on availability and safety margins.
The Erzurum setting also matters because it supports combined testing themes that many air forces care about at the same time: cold and altitude. High terrain and low temperatures can influence takeoff performance, climb margins, and the consistency of avionics and environmental control systems during high-workload phases. Demonstrating repeatable performance in such conditions helps translate test achievements into credible operational planning, including sustained training tempos in winter.
Beyond the test campaign itself, Hürjet is positioned as an advanced jet trainer with a secondary light-combat role. Hürjet has a supersonic design with digital flight controls and a cockpit philosophy intended to mirror frontline aircraft workload, so students can transition more efficiently to modern fighters. In the light-attack configuration, the same general design approach supports carriage of external stores and mission equipment suited to lower-intensity tasks where using high-end fighters can be disproportionate in cost and airframe fatigue. In the Spanish selection context, the aircraft has been presented as a supersonic trainer with a digital glass cockpit, fly-by-wire controls and an open mission architecture aligned with advanced fighter transition training needs.
Hürjet is generally described as a single-engine aircraft measuring approximately 13.6 meters in length, around 4.1 meters in height, with a wingspan of about 9.5 meters, and is intended to support advanced fighter training alongside potential armed and unarmed mission profiles. Publicly available specifications indicate a maximum speed of up to Mach 1.4 and an operational ceiling of roughly 45,000 feet. The design is commonly associated with the General Electric F404-series engine and a flight envelope suitable for high-G training. In configurations oriented toward light combat or tactical support roles, the aircraft is reported to be capable of carrying a payload of up to around 3,000 kg across seven external hardpoints, allowing the integration of mission pods, external fuel tanks, or weapons depending on customer requirements and system integration choices.
Program maturity and industrial momentum also form a key part of the overall assessment. According to reporting by Anadolu Agency, the Hürjet development program has already accumulated approximately 400 test sorties as part of its flight test and evaluation campaign. The completion of extreme cold-weather trials in Erzurum is presented as a logical continuation of this sustained test effort, supporting preparations for serial production. Taken together, the sortie count and the successful validation of operations in severe winter conditions point to a program that is progressively moving beyond developmental validation toward production readiness. The Erzurum campaign thus reflects not an isolated test event, but a further step in consolidating the aircraft’s operational envelope as Türkiye advances the Hürjet toward initial deliveries and broader international exposure.
Proving cold-weather operability expands Hürjet’s addressable market beyond temperate users to air forces that must train through long winters or operate from mountainous bases. This includes states in northern latitudes, high-altitude regions, and countries whose operational calendars cannot pause for weather. For those buyers, the question is not whether the aircraft can fly in cold conditions once, but whether it can generate sorties predictably, maintain training throughput, and remain supportable when infrastructure is limited and hangar time is constrained. Spain’s decision to procure Hürjet to replace aging F-5M trainers reinforces that the aircraft is being positioned not only for domestic replacement needs but also for NATO-aligned training pipelines that require predictable sortie generation and high availability.
With the Erzurum minus 21 °C campaign now reported as complete, Hürjet adds a concrete readiness credential that directly affects customer risk calculations. Cold-weather resilience strengthens the aircraft’s credibility as a year-round training platform and reinforces its export pitch to operators whose operational reality includes winter basing, icy runways, and high terrain. For Türkiye’s program, this is less a symbolic test than a practical gateway to broader operational acceptance and wider international relevance.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.