Talking about information sharing (and no talking about engines
),I've recently seen TF-X model that is probably near something of a PDR model that has an IRST on top of its radome with a small aerodynamic (and possibly radar reflection) shielding on the bottom.
Although where I saw this model was a thread of another forum where they were discussing about Su-57's stealth capabilities, which also has a big IRST up on the nose, I think it's an interesting topic we could discuss about on this thread as well.
Maybe this is something the Turks are planning to redesign in the further batches of the aircraft? It is already official that the first iteration of the TF-X would not be a full-blown 5th gen fighter jet but a design capable to be upgraded to 5th gen. Nothing is known about how many of these first iteration would be produced but I would suggest that these first iteration would not be a mere prototype.
It's really hard to tell what would be the difference between the first and following iterations of TF-X would be as a lot of information just don't exist on public. We know projects like BÜRFIS and BEOS exist but it seems to be that no one has ever told what the ROC or concrete project structure of these projects are like.
Also unlike what some people suggest, some of the detailed information regarding western fighter jets from the US, Europe, Japan and Korea are able to be found on the web if you have time and will to search for it.
Even some detailed information regarding F-35's technologies such as it's data fusion engine could be found online, be it a book, research paper or transcript of something that came out in some sort of symposium or conference. Same applies for Rafale or Eurofighter, F-2 and KF-X. Talking about KF-X, even the details about its AESA hardware or RAM and RAS performace could be found online from credible sources, mostly research papers of ADD, KAI or affiliate universities. All you need to do is get through language barriers. To an extent, Chinese fighter jet technologies, such as their stealth related researches concerning J-20 development; eg: how canards affect J-20's stealth capabilities, could be found online as well.
I have seen none of these for the TF-X. When even the Chinese publish a lot of their critical techs online and people like us could access it, I would guess that there are Turkish papers somewhere in the internet as well. It's either that none of the Turks are interested enough to dig into research database to look up for a research paper which is often time consuming and if you're not a member of a university, costly. It could also mean that these information are only shared in Turkish speaking defence forums.
I would like to ask some Turkish members which are the biggest Turkish research data base/digital library or academic journals. I've found one of TÜBITAK but it seems to be that it only contains very limited number of researches regarding defense. (
https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/index.htm) If us foreign members could search for and find some related research papers regarding TF-X it might help containing the spread of misinformation, if there are any.
