Baykar’s unmanned fighter aircraft completes first flight

Eyüp Serbest - ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s first indigenous unmanned fighter aircraft Bayraktar Kızılelma, developed by Baykar Technologies, has completed its test take-off in a video shared by Selçuk Bayraktar, the company’s chief technology officer.

“We couldn’t hold it on the ground any longer! Thank God,” Bayraktar tweeted, sharing the Kızılelma’s departure from the runway and the moment of its rise.

The drone was showcased at Teknofest, Türkiye’s largest aerospace and technology festival, in the northern province of Samsun, attracting great attention despite ongoing design and development efforts.

Kızılelma, whose engine integration test was carried out on Sept. 19, successfully completed taxi and ground driving tests with safety ties first on Nov. 20. Then, the first test runs without safety ties were directed by Bayraktar.

On Dec. 3, the maiden flight test was carried out, announced by Bayraktar on Twitter, tweeting, “We are holding it hard… Bayraktar Kızılelma swept its feet off the ground. Almost there, I hope.”

Kızılelma is planned to make a difference on the battlefield, especially with its “landing and take-off capability on ships with short runways.”

Developed considering short-runway ships such as the TCG Anadolu, Türkiye’s first LHD-class vessel, the fighter jet will play an important role in overseas missions thanks to this feature. It will have a low radar signature thanks to its design.

Kızılelma 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.

It will be equipped with the locally made active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.

The first flight of Kızılelma is expected to take place in 2023, according to Bayraktar.

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.