TR UAV/UCAV Programs | Anka - series | Kızılelma | TB - series

[Anmdt]

I don't think that there is a blanket IP rights ownership in everything SSB orders.

Most of the platforms or tools ordered to be developed directly by SSB is funded by SSB in return of IP rights. The company is more like a major subcontractor to fulfill the design and construction. This is lifting economical burden and risks of the private companies.
Sometimes companies take some initiative and fund a project on their own seeing a gap in the international or national market, then it changes.

 

[Anmdt]

If Turkey want's to have a chance in drone market that drone has to be below $15mln (which is still twice the price of a comparable Chinese drone)

It is not entirely about the price in the International Market. Lobbying, financing (crediting) for an order is more crucial, Chinese offers long term credits with low interest, sometimes extending up to 10 years for a few million dollars.

There has been another case as well, which Turkey made a lower bid again with a limited ToT and local production for future orders yet the country has clinged on more expensive US product with a restricted use (without arms only ISR under supervision of US personnel), which eventually wasn't sold them either and later they turned their point towards China and acquired some.

On the above case, Turkey again has made nearly as same as, yet more expensive, Chinese on the same basis (training, spare parts, munitions included), also with more extend of local production for future orders yet still failed against them because Chinese has lobbied perfectly using some tools.

It makes no sense to have a drone at half price of a fighter jet. Your citing of US drones are completely wrong, the US uses her position in Nato to push their weapons upon "allies", utilizing CAATSA treaths.

Cost of a Drone = Cost of a drone + Operational cost + maintenance cost
Cost of a Jet = Cost of a Jet +Operational cost + maintenance cost + Cost of the Pilot Training * percentage of risk

A drone can be replaced in 2 weeks or within a week, no stress on operator/pilots upon a loss
A jet fighter can be replaced in some months, pilot replaced in 5+ years or more

A jet crashes, you have to extract the pilot and make sure if he was KIA
A drone crashes, bomb the location with artillery - rocket artillery and leave it.

I would only object if a company is abusing the above reasons and selling expensive products in return of huge profits if profits are within an acceptable margin there is no other way i think.

 

[Zafer]

On common logic.

It makes no sense to have a drone at half price of a fighter jet. Your citing of US drones are completely wrong, the US uses her position in Nato to push their weapons upon "allies", utilizing CAATSA treaths.


If Turkey want's to have a chance in drone market that drone has to be below $15mln (which is still twice the price of a comparable Chinese drone)

Only a careful analysis can reveal the true value of Akıncı after it shows its true range of capabilities in the field.

 

[Saithan]

I think another problem is that we're offering too much for not enough. It's either to penetrate the market or because we're in dire need of selling these products.

Let's not forget that many of the UAV are battleproven and build on concepts that work. So we should offer them for a fair price, but not at a loss. I fact I would say a profit of 20-30% per sales doesn't sound too bad in my ears.

 

[Zafer]

I would only object if a company is abusing the above reasons and selling expensive products in return of huge profits if profits are within an acceptable margin there is no other way i think.

I don't think a Turkish company or any other company can sell Turkey anything at premium prices anymore. But the true deserved prices need to be evaluated by professionals not by the common man. Also making a big gap between domestic sales and the international market is not viable. Turkey has a 2.5x value coefficient between PPP GDP and GDP Current Prices but in the high technology market the coefficient is far less.

 

[Kartal1]

When you say Carrier I think of

View attachment 20959

It's not unreal, a CN235 with a bunch of alpagu, Kargu being tipped out from the rear gate and that locates target automatically or with ground forces laser targetting capabilities (smart helmet etc.)

Would be pretty awesome. Well not just Kargu and Alpagu, but any type that would fit our doctrine.

The costs can only be compared when we include operational and overhaul cost of a Jet to take place of such drones for air-to-ground or intelligence missions.
Even with a price tag of $35 mil, a drone would still make up its price in a year or two considering how often Turkey uses and deploys drones.
At this stage i am not even mentioning a trained jet pilot costs multi-hundred millions.
Let a hundred million dollars sink, if there is no other way to acquire these kind of drones from elsewhere (which absolutely there is no other way).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1132725606418919426

 

[kimov]

If Akinci like drones cost $35mln than Turkey should not even produce them.

Anything above $15mln is purely waste

Nobody talks about what it cost to produce basic unarmed version. We discuss the export price for the specced out version like SeaGuardian where the actual production cost of the drone is only a small part. The price has to be relatively high for drones similar to SeaGuardian since even rich customers would only need 3-10 of them to cover the strategic needs. It is simply better to buy 3 strategic drones every 5 years to keep up with the fast development in the sensor/radar area.

For tactical front line use where development is not as fast, export customers would probably buy 5-20 armed Akinci/Aksungur ($15-20M), 10-50 TB2 ($3-5M), +100 of various loitering munitions/missiles ($0.1-1M). In the future, you may also add 10-20 first gen jet powered drones in about 5-10 years and +50 2nd gen jets in 15-20years.

An Akinci without any payload would probably be sold for around $10-15M while the production cost should be around or even less than $2M (again without any payload).
If I remember some old numbers correct for the early versions, the BOM cost for TB2 is around 0.7-1M$ so the mark-up is about 3-5x which I personally think is too low but it is limited by market forces.

 

[Siper>MMU]

Akıncı cost will be definitely lower than its counterpart MQ-9.

MQ-9 has an cost of 30-40 Million dollars depending on variant. With cheaper Ukranian engines and indigenous avionics, we can expect a price range of 10-12 million dollars. Considering that Atmaca has cost of 500K dollars compared to its counterpart Harpoon Block 2 ER with 1.5+ million dollars cost. Both equipment and labour is cheap here. Also Akıncı uses some common parts with TB-2. These parts are already in production and reached a fairly low price.

 

[Blank1]

Doesn't matter if Turkish manufactured drones are expensive, Freedom is priceless. At least we don't have to beg for drones from our frenemies.

Chinese drones have bad reputation :
- Nigeria : Almost all CH 3 drones crashed
- Pakistan : CH 3 / Burraq, Nowhere to be found
- Iraq : CH 4 & 5, They were not satisfied with it and decided to sell them
- Large number of Wing Long 2 drones were sold to UAE and Saudi Arabia, most of them were shot down in Yemen and Libya.
- Serbia also got some Chinese drones BUT they are interested in TB2.

 

[Siper>MMU]

Low quality parts used in Chinese drones. Turkish made drones are both cheap to buy/operate and has high quality equipment. Chinese drones also need high maintenance. That's why they weren't in duty all times in Libya.

 

[Saithan]

Well, TB2 needs to be upgraded with Satellite communication and range needs to be doubled imo. If that were to happen it'd be easier to sell it for more.

It's effective, but not much time will pass before they'll be outdated is what I fear.

 

[kimov]

Akıncı cost will be definitely lower than its counterpart MQ-9.

MQ-9 has an cost of 30-40 Million dollars depending on variant. With cheaper Ukranian engines and indigenous avionics, we can expect a price range of 10-12 million dollars. Considering that Atmaca has cost of 500K dollars compared to its counterpart Harpoon Block 2 ER with 1.5+ million dollars cost. Both equipment and labour is cheap here. Also Akıncı uses some common parts with TB-2. These parts are already in production and reached a fairly low price.

Again, you are also comparing basic tactical drones with strategic drones.
MQ-9 SeaGueardian/SkyGuardian cost about $100M.

So;
Tactical armed Akinci/Aksungur should be about $15-20M (50% of MQ-9)
Strategic Akinci/Aksungur should cost about $50M (50% of MQ-9 SeaGuardian)
For AWACS, Akinci/Aksungur may even reach +100M$ (50% of GlobalEye) on export.

 

[Siper>MMU]

Again, you are also comparing basic tactical drones with strategic drones.
MQ-9 SeaGueardian/SkyGuardian cost about $100M.

So;
Tactical armed Akinci/Aksungur should be about $15-20M (50% of MQ-9)
Strategic Akinci/Aksungur should cost about $50M (50% of MQ-9 SeaGuardian)
For AWACS, Akinci/Aksungur may even reach +100M$ (50% of GlobalEye) on export.

ı compare Akıncı with basic MQ-9.

 

[Nutuk]

It is not entirely about the price in the International Market. Lobbying, financing (crediting) for an order is more crucial, Chinese offers long term credits with low interest, sometimes extending up to 10 years for a few million dollars.

There has been another case as well, which Turkey made a lower bid again with a limited ToT and local production for future orders yet the country has clinged on more expensive US product with a restricted use (without arms only ISR under supervision of US personnel), which eventually wasn't sold them either and later they turned their point towards China and acquired some.

On the above case, Turkey again has made nearly as same as, yet more expensive, Chinese on the same basis (training, spare parts, munitions included), also with more extend of local production for future orders yet still failed against them because Chinese has lobbied perfectly using some tools.


Cost of a Drone = Cost of a drone + Operational cost + maintenance cost
Cost of a Jet = Cost of a Jet +Operational cost + maintenance cost + Cost of the Pilot Training * percentage of risk

A drone can be replaced in 2 weeks or within a week, no stress on operator/pilots upon a loss
A jet fighter can be replaced in some months, pilot replaced in 5+ years or more

A jet crashes, you have to extract the pilot and make sure if he was KIA
A drone crashes, bomb the location with artillery - rocket artillery and leave it.

I would only object if a company is abusing the above reasons and selling expensive products in return of huge profits if profits are within an acceptable margin there is no other way i think.

I know all of that, but a jet offers much much more versatility than a drone to make a one on one comparing anyway.

If you compare drones you have to compare it against other drones in her class and if the drone is already at half price of a fighter jet you have to rethink seriously if it is still worth it.

 

[kimov]

Well, TB2 needs to be upgraded with Satellite communication and range needs to be doubled imo. If that were to happen it'd be easier to sell it for more.

It's effective, but not much time will pass before they'll be outdated is what I fear.

TB2S with unlimited sat control already exist.
The current version of TB2 has an extended range of 300km (earlier versions were 150km) as confirmed by Selcuk Bayraktar himself.

Concerning the outdating, TB2 will off course be outdated sometime but TB2 will still be useful for the next 10-20 years as a cheap tactical drone with very small RCS similar to how artillery from the 90s still have a tactical use.

Current version of TB2 will be outdated when someone have radar which can detect it at +15km or have a fleet of anti-drone (AD) drones. Ironically, Turkey may be the first country to deploy an AD drone fleet with Akinci/Aksungur armed with short-range Sungur A2A missile within 2-3 years.

 

[Nutuk]

Best advertisement of drones is real use in battles. (actually this count for most arms but not every arm can show itself so good, thanks to bombing vids on youtube / twitter)

Just a couple of years back the world had only seen US drone actions against insurgents and being used for assasinations, Israeli drones were used against Palestinians and observations.

Syria, Libya and Karabag use of drones put Turkey very strongly on the map and offered the world insight that drones can do more than bomb insurgents and assasinations. TB2 was a true "wakeup call" for many countries who are now looking for ways to add drone capabilities to their own armed forces. From now on there will be an intensive competition in the drone market.

 

[Fuzuli NL]

In a joint operation of units of Turkish Coast Guard, Security Forces, Narcotic Aviation, and UAV-Special Forces, A ship was intercepted near Syrian shores and 1.5 + tonnes of narcotics were confiscated.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1394265644967895043

 

[Combat-Master]

Simulated TB2 Consoles being operated by Children.

 

[Huelague]

ASELSAN successfully tests micro unmanned aerial vehicle

Saka has advantages over existing UAV systems with features such as small size, easy transportation with camouflage - Anadolu Ajansı

www.aa.com.tr

 

[Fuzuli NL]

ASELSAN successfully tests micro unmanned aerial vehicle

Saka has advantages over existing UAV systems with features such as small size, easy transportation with camouflage - Anadolu Ajansı

www.aa.com.tr

Project manager Yusuf Ziya Kotil.
Is he related to TA CEO Temel Kotil?