Page 26 - SAHA EXPO 2024 - DAY 1

After TB2 and Akinci, Baykar Readies

to Wow the World with Kızılelma

It is known the world over for the Bayraktar has already earned 10 international custom- internally-carried munitions. The unmanned
TB2, the unmanned combat aerial vehicle ers - the company is currently developing fighter jet has a maximum speed of 900
(UCAV) that has been sold to more countries the Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned fighter km/h while the combat radius is 500 nm.
than any other drone and even inspired a jet, Türkiye’s first indigenously developed jet According to Baykar CEO Haluk Bayraktar,
Ukrainian folk song, but Turkish defence of the type. the third production prototype the company, which has allocated US$1
company Baykar is now onto something of the unmanned combat jet successfully billion to the project, plans to build at least
bigger, even revolutionary. conducted its first flight in September. twelve Kızılelma drones this year and in-
crease the number significantly in the next
Even as it increases production of the TB2 According to the company, Kızılelma is ca- few years. Serial production is expected in
and Akinci drones to keep up with soaring pable of carrying 1,500 kilograms of payload 2025. The drone is scheduled to commence
demand from countries – export agree- and can operate in the air for five hours. It flight tests from TCG Anadolu, Türkiye’s
ments for the TB2 have been signed with 34 will take off and land on short-runway air- largest warship, next year.
countries while the bigger and newer Akinci craft carriers, and carry out missions with
Legendary Status
Baykar generates more than 90 percent of
its revenue through export deals. The com-
pany’s revenue from exports in 2023 was
US$1.77 billion, out of the Turkish defence
industry’s total exports worth a record-high
US$5.5 billion. Comfortably Türkiye’s leading
defence and aerospace exporter for the last
three years, Baykar created history in 2023
by becoming the first defence and aero-
space company to be among the country’s
top 10 exporters across all sectors.

As is to be expected, the TB2 was the largest
revenue earner, with the company seeing
interest in the drone not just from estab-
lished defence markets such as the Middle
East, Europe, Africa and Central Asia but
also newer markets such as Latin America.
This year alone, Indonesia, Kenya, Maldives,
Malaysia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina

26 OCTOBER-22-2024 WWW.GBP.COM.SG/DAILY NEWS