Baykar’s drone completes fifth flight test

ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s first indigenous unmanned fighter aircraft Bayraktar Kızılelma, developed by Baykar Technologies, has successfully completed the fifth system identification test, company’s Chief Technology Officer Selçuk Bayraktar has announced.

“Bayraktar Kızılelma performed its fifth flight test today [April 18]. As part of the system identification tests, it successfully performed test maneuvers with its landing gear closed and open,” Bayraktar said in a video post shared on the company’s Twitter account.

Furthermore, the drone also successfully passed all the other maneuver tests performed in the flight training and test center in the northwestern province of Tekirdağ’s Çorlu district, he said.

Kızılelma, whose engine integration test was carried out last September, successfully completed taxi and ground driving tests two months later.

On early December 2022, the maiden test flight was conducted, announced by Bayraktar on Twitter. The drone is planned to make a difference on the battlefield, especially with its “landing and take-off capability on ships with short runways.”

It will be able to carry 1,500 kilograms of payload (weapons and devices, etc.). Its flight range is 930 kilometers, while the operating altitude was declared as 10,668 meters. It can operate in the air for five hours and has a maximum speed of 900 km/h.

The Turkish drones got worldwide fame amid the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War that broke out on Sept. 27, 2020, between Armenia and Azerbaijan when Türkiye, a rising drone power in the international arena, supplied its ally Azerbaijan with UAVs for use in the conflict and significantly contributed to Azerbaijan’s victory.