Screengrab. Source: Baykar Defense.
On December 14, Turkey’s drone manufacturer Baykar Defense announced that its jet-powered combat drone Kızılelma [Red Apple in English] has successfully completed its maiden flight.
The company shared footage from the flight, which reportedly took place from the Akinci Flight Training and Test Center in northwestern Turkey.
The Kızılelma, also known as Project MIUS [Muharip İnsansız Uçak Sistemi in Turkish – Combatant Unmanned Aircraft System in English] is a low-observable combat drone with a design that mimics traditional manned fighter jets. The advanced drone has been in development since 2013.
“We could not keep it anymore on the ground. It flew! Thanks to our Lord,” Bayraktar said on Twitter on Wednesday.
The first version of the drone, the Kızılelma-A, will be powered by a Ukrainian-made Ivchenko-Progress AI-25TLT turbofan engine and will have a subsonic speed of Mach 0.9. This version is expected to be officially introduced in 2023.
Baykar is also working on a supersonic version, the Kızılelma-B, that will be powered by the more powerful Ivchenko-Progress AI-322F turbofan engine.
The drone is expected to have an endurance of five to six hours, and will be able to reach a maximum altitude of 14,000 meters.
Kızılelma has a wingspan of ten meters and a takeoff weight of 6,000 kg. It will be able to carry a 1,500-kg payload, including a verity of Turkish-made precision-guided air-to-ground and air-to-air munitions. The drone will reportedly be equipped with a locally-developed active electronically scanned array radar, an optical targeting system, an electronic warfare suite and a signal intelligence module.
In addition, the combat drone is designed in a way that makes it capable to take off and land on an amphibious assault ship, such as TCG Anadolu, without any need for a catapult system.
In the last few years, Turkey rose to become one of the leading countries in drone technology. Ankara is now trying to capitalize on this success by focusing on the development of more advanced drones, with the aim of strengthening its military capabilities as well as its defense exports.
