On Sunday, March 1, 2026, the first of four long-range Hava SOJ (Stand-Off Jammer) electronic warfare aircraft, built on the Bombardier Global 6000 airframe for the Turkish Air Force (Türk Hava Kuvvetleri), made its maiden flight from the airfield of the Turkish holding TUSAŞ/TAI (Türk Havacılık ve Uzay Sanayii / Turkish Aerospace Industries).
Hava means “air” or “aerial” in Turkish / Photos: SavunmaSanayiST.com
The maiden flight of the prototype equipped with mission systems was preceded on February 19 by flights of the baseline aircraft intended for the subsequent HAVA SOJ examples, which used the call signs THS42 and THS41.
Details of the test program are not known, but according to reports in the Turkish defense press, the first aircraft is expected to be delivered later this year. The TUSAŞ/TAI holding is the program’s main integrator, while the specialist equipment, communications systems, a radar station with a phased-array antenna using semiconductor technologies, and the avionics are supplied by Aselsan under a contract dated August 9, 2018. The first two Bombardier Global 6000 airframes arrived in the country as early as March 2019 (the earlier plan to use the Bombardier Challenger CL-605 was abandoned), and the main implementation contract was signed in May 2023. The program was also renamed ASOJ 23-A.
In the meantime, in November 2021 it was reported that the aircraft would receive Miysis DIRCM (Directed Infrared Countermeasure) self-protection suites from the Italian group Leonardo.
The aircraft are intended to carry out electronic support measures (ESM) and electronic warfare (EW) missions. As the Turkish name Hava (“air”) suggests, the system is to be a development and miniaturization of the land-based KARA SOJ electronic warfare system, designated KORAL. The system, with a range of 150 km and consisting of two components, ESM and EW, has been mounted on Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles 8×8 wheeled chassis.
The system processes radio signals, automatically identifying threats, including measuring pulse repetition intervals, pulse widths, and the direction of transmission. KORAL uses Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology, which allows the characteristics of the jamming to be tailored to radio signals emitted by an adversary’s forces on land, at sea, and in the air. The first KORAL systems were delivered to the military in February 2016.
It is also worth noting that on December 19, 2025, Poland’s Armament Agency signed a contract worth approximately PLN 2 billion gross with Aselsan for the delivery of an Automated Reconnaissance and Jamming System intended for electronic warfare operations (monitoring, defense, and electronic attack) by tactical-level electronic warfare units. The details remain classified.
🔴Türk Elektronik Harp Uçağı HAVASOJ, test uçuşlarına devam ediyor.
▪️4 uçaklık projede, ilk teslimatların bu yıl Türk Hava Kuvvetleri’ne gerçekleştirilmesi planlanıyor.
🔸Uzaktan Karıştırma (Stand Off Jammer – SOJ) Platformları, düşman hava sahasına girmeden, uzak mesafelerden… pic.twitter.com/3Lm4UJnouO
— SavunmaSanayiST.com (@SavunmaSanayiST) March 1, 2026
Radar Terminatörü ASOJ 23-A’dan ilk yüklü uçuş
Tüm elektronik sistemleri ASELSAN tarafından geliştirilen ve TUSAŞ tarafından da uçağa özel montaj işlemleri yapılan, “uzun menzili karıştırıcı” ASOJ 23-A’ların ilki tüm yüklü uçuş sırasında görüntülendi.
Yüzde yüz yerli olarak… pic.twitter.com/Epn3vcjfQG
— Oğuzhan Uygun (@ogzhn_uyg) March 2, 2026