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

[Yasar_TR]

Akinci is a platform that definitely outperforms TAI's drone in all areas; Aksungur cannot compete with it.

TAI is state owned,it can go slow.
Baykar is not,it needs to earn to develop.

We mustn’t compare apples with oranges.
TAI is a state owned company with certain bureaucratic practices that can not be overcome easily. That makes it lethargic and not malleable like a private sector company as Baykar.

There is a fine and sensitive division of work share between the two companies when it comes to UAVs.

Small lightweight UCAVs are produced by Baykar. (TB2 & TB3)
Supersonic Stealth attack UCAVs are produced by Baykar. (KE)
High altitude turboprop UAVs are also Baykar’s domain. (Akinci)

Heavier weight mid altitude long endurance UAVs are produced by TAI (Anka-1 and Anka-2-Aksungur)
Subsonic deep strike flying wing stealth UCAVs are produced by TAI (Anka-3)

You can not compare Aksungur with Akinci. One is powered by internal combustion diesel engine, the other by a high powered turboprop. There is a version of Akinci with twin TEI-PD170 engines. It’s performance is not great, apart from it’s longer endurance. Akinci comes to its own especially with the twin 850HP turboprops.

 

[IC3M@N FX]

I don't fully understand the specific benefits of the Aksungur drone. It seems like a platform that is uncompromisingly optimised for endurance, but without offering a payload capacity or system diversity that even comes close to the level of the Akinci.

In my view, it would have made more strategic sense for TAI to develop a smaller "Global Hawk-class" drone – that is, a dedicated high-performance reconnaissance and espionage UAV optimised exclusively for ISR missions. With AI-322F engines and later a conversion to TEI-TF6000 or TF10000, it would have been possible to create a true high-altitude and high-speed platform.

Currently, there are many Turkish combat drones that can also perform reconnaissance tasks, but not a single platform designed purely for strategic ISR. Perhaps the Anka-S comes closest to this approach; it has been chosen very often for such missions, but even it does not achieve the flight altitude or speed of a turbofan-powered HALE system.
Akinci, on the other hand, is too large and not optimised for covert missions.

I also do not see the Anka-3 as a sole replacement for a true strategic reconnaissance platform – unless the design is made so modular that it can also be used as a pure stealth ISR UAV in the future.

However, a compact Global Hawk equivalent would be ideal.