We must state that perhaps more than other types of aircraft, stealthy flying wing drones are known to evolve through the testing process significantly. At first, low-observability is not essential to successful flight testing and other primary trials, so things like extra vents, antenna, pitot tubes, airframe surface refinement, and especially exhaust become far more refined in later iterations.
The exhaust, in particular, is among the hardest components of a low-observable aircraft to successfully realize, so a more basic exhaust can be used for initial testing. As predicted, we
saw exactly this with Russia's Hunter-B UCAV. A more
production-representative configuration emerged after basic flight testing and other trials were complete, which included a low-observable exhaust, among many other refinements.
Source:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/turkeys-flying-wing-unmanned-combat-air-vehicle-breaks-cover
Basically, Anka III is going to have some significant improvements throughout the entire testing process.
Anka-3 brought a completely new perspective to the Turkish aviation industry. The capabilities that the system will gain over time, rather than its very first variant of this, will shape the future of our combat aviation as a whole:. We can make a summary of the capabilities to be acquired under the Anka-3(x) program:
Mastering stealth aircraft design.
Confronting stealth aircraft to modern air-to-air combat systems.
Confronting stealth aircraft to modern ground-to-air combat systems.
Experimenting unstable yaw aircraft control methods.
Acquiring full mission system representativity.
Acquiring composite pack airborne control on transonic aircrafts
Acquiring of reducing engine and plume IR signature, techniques of infrared stealth, nozzle and tail section
Acquiring collaborative flight with drones and aircraft.
Acquiring communicative stealthness
Acquiring fully autonomous AI control and self-decision systems
The concept of stealth is traditionally discussed in social media and forums only in terms of RCS, where the predominant focus is on the X band. In this context, material and construction technology, coating and geometric qualities are emphasized with a focus on radar detection. However, the concept of stealth as a whole encompasses many other dimensions, ranging from thermal/chemical management and IR signature to communication secrecy and data link security.
The Anka-3 program represents the ideal of a pure stealth platform. Correction, it is not only a pure stealth platform, but also represents an ideal that aims for this platform to provide operational effectiveness on the battlefield as a drone with AI support and advanced autonomy. This will allow us to consider all the aspects of stealth in a drone platform as a whole, many of which I have mentioned above and probably many of which I am not even aware of.
This can be helpful in areas with poor mobile phone coverage or during a disaster.
