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

Merzifonlu

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If Tusaş "reveals" one more prototype without others going into proper serial production I'm going to lose it. This scattergun approach really starting to feel like it is spreading our resources, both material and manpower, too thin and we are barely getting any real work done.
Do not worry. Anka-4 is the last platform included in the informatics above, but the prototype of which has not been produced yet. I think TAI will not announce another platform other than Anka-4 for many many years.
 

Nutuk

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If Tusaş "reveals" one more prototype without others going into proper serial production I'm going to lose it. This scattergun approach really starting to feel like it is spreading our resources, both material and manpower, too thin and we are barely getting any real work done.

Not really, on the contrary it would be the right approax. If TAI can deliver the needs of whole the spectrum:
- Kaan 5th generation multi purpose (mainly Air to air dominance)
- ANKA-3 stealth bomber
- ANKA-4 Loyal wingman that can keep up with the speed of Kaan

It will have a giant impact on the global market where Kaan alone can maybe not compete against F35, KF21.

If ANKA-4 comes true (is speculation for now) than TAI will hit the jackpot
 

boredaf

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Not really, on the contrary it would be the right approax. If TAI can deliver the needs of whole the spectrum:
- Kaan 5th generation multi purpose (mainly Air to air dominance)
- ANKA-3 stealth bomber
- ANKA-4 Loyal wingman that can keep up with the speed of Kaan

It will have a giant impact on the global market where Kaan alone can maybe not compete against F35, KF21.

If ANKA-4 comes true (is speculation for now) than TAI will hit the jackpot
In the meantime, we haven't gotten a T-129 or T-70 delivery in a long time, Gökbey had its deliveries delayed for how long I can't even remember, Kaan's first flight has been delayed, nobody knows what's going on with Hürjet or Hürkuş-2, T-929 "flew" once and disappeared, T-629 was shown in a couple of fairs before disappearing as well, Anka-3 made 1 flight and no news since then.

At some point, I'd rather see things go into at least LRIP or proper serial production and focus on things getting in our inventory, instead of seeing another prototype that is going to be seen once then not to be heard for years. It's a personal preference.
 

Zafer

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Delta-wings like Kızılelma do need big-ass engines to overcome the energy bleed issue.

Haven't surprised one bit, low-key wanted it to happen TBH.

This means Kızılelma's place in our air force will be much bigger than we comprehend now.

Mr. Hayrani Öz might need to recalculate @Zafer
I will happily redo the visualization of his data if he does.
 

TheInsider

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Anka-4, IHA-SOJ and IHA-AWACS are the usual suspects here. IHA-SOJ and IHA-AWACS have ambitious altitude targets on top of big power needs so an F-110 without an afterburner might be needed to reach those altitudes and TAI will probably replace F-110 with the national engine once it becomes available.

A single-engine Anka-4 will have a comparable MTOW to a Gripen with much more thrust.
 

uçuyorum

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F110 will go through too much fuel, need larger bypass engine for those platforms that need very long endurance like soj and awacs.
 

uçuyorum

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It depends. It is not a simple calculation like that.
Specific fuel consumption?

I mean yes you can make one with F110 but it will have low endurance, even if you load it with a lot of fuel and make it fly slow, it will be expensive to operate.
 

Zafer

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The TF6000 has better fuel economy with a relatively high 1.08 bypass ratio compared to the F110 with 0.87. if the power output targets of IHA-SOJ and IHA-AWACS match the engine the TF6000 is a prime candidate to power those systems. They can probably consider multiple options with various size planes.
 

Zafer

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Probably TF6000 will not be enough for Awacs and SOJ variants.
Whether it is or not when it comes to having a big punch they may not want to provide engines for such systems. I am not sure if they can avoid it but still a possibility. In that case you want to see what you can make with what you already have. A twin engine plane or one with a smaller output but you can deploy multiple planes instead of one powerful one. Until of course a powerful TF35k comes along.
 

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They are probably working on a slightly larger fighter UAV than the KE. The F110 factor (an engine in this class in general) tells us that this platform could be a shadow of the KAAN in terms of its mission deployment time and low to high speed acceleration capabilities. In terms of design, I think it could be one of the preliminary outputs of the 6th generation conceptual works that TAI officials have been talking very much about recently. National heavyweight engine is very likely to will have similar volume and diameter with F110 btw.
 
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Sanchez

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An OGM(forest service) Aksungur with a Süper Şimşek. Veeeery interesting. They probably use it as a testbed outside of the fire season? That would be an interesting contract.

s8cIxkh.jpeg
 

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TheInsider

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Specific fuel consumption?

I mean yes you can make one with F110 but it will have low endurance, even if you load it with a lot of fuel and make it fly slow, it will be expensive to operate.
The higher you go, the faster you go and the more electrical power you draw from the engine high BPR engine provides less SCF advantage and at some point scale of trade-off is leaning to low BPR if you take into account other parameters. For example, the E-7T AWACS plane has CFM56-7 high BPR (5.1) turbofan engines, its service ceiling is 41k feet and its cruise speed is 760km/h

F-110 has a BPR of 0.87 which is close to ~1 (1.08 for TF6000 and I expect a similar value for TF35K) which TEI thinks is a good compromise and sweet spot. It is ideal to use until a national engine becomes available. Better go for turboprop/propfan etc for UAVs if we have a different mission profile in mind and we are looking for higher SFC with those birds above everything else. No need to use a turbofan when we want our UAVs to have a cruise speed of 500-600km/h and operate at 30k feet.

UAVS has no cockpit or onboard life support systems and does not need pressurized cabins. Some of the weight budget allocated to those systems is reserved for extra fuel which is more than enough to provide enough endurance (E-7T has an endurance of ~8 hours without air refueling Anka-3 has 10 hours with its low BPR engine). High BPR engines also have size and weight disadvantages.

I think there is a big operational advantage to go higher with AWACS planes. If we want IHA-AWACs to operate at 45k feet we need a service ceiling of something like 50-55k feet. AWACS killer long-range A-A and air defense missiles pose an increasingly big threat as those missiles become widespread.
 
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