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| Turkey Leaks Kizilelma's Stealth Drone Prototype |
Angkara - Turkey continues to demonstrate capabilities in producing unmanned vehicles or combat drones. Recently, Turkey leaked a prototype of the Kizilelma stealth drone which is said to have a more ferocious combat capability than the Bayraktar TB2.
Selcuk Bayraktar, Chief Technology Officer [CTO] of the company Bayrak, posted a photo on his Twitter account of the Kizilelma, Turkey's first stealth combat drone. The reputation of the Bayraktar company in the manufacture of combat drones has been proven by the success of the Bayraktar TB2 drone in a number of battlefields, such as Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
Quoted from BulgarianMilitary “First photo of Bayraktar Kizilelma painted… first photo of her painted liner,” Selcuk Bayraktar wrote in a tweet. He also featured the company's management in his post.
Turkish media claims that the Bayraktar Kizilelma stealth drone unmanned aerial vehicle system is based on the production experience gained in the development of the Bayraktar Akinci. This is part of meeting the future needs of the Turkish Air Force.
BulgarianMilitary already wrote about this project in March 2022. Then the management of the Turkish company announced the start of the project and prototype-level production. According to initial estimates, the Bayraktar Kizilelma will make its first flight in 2023.
The Bayraktar Kizilelma [Bayraktar Red Apple] will be a jet-powered, single-engine, stealth, supersonic, aircraft carrier-launched fighter drone. The Bayraktar Kizilelma is designed to be able to take off and land on short runways such as on top of an aircraft carrier.
Turkish experts say drones will play a key role in future military missions. The Turkish military is most likely targeting the conflict in Syria as well as military action against the PKK in Iraq and Syria as the target for the operation of the Kizilelma drone.
The ability to stealth, or avoid radar detection, is considered one of its unique features. Moreover, this issue is considered the most critical in the design process of the manned fighter jet, which was also taken into account in the design of the Bayraktar Kizilelma.
The drone will carry and use all 1,500 kilograms of ammunition developed nationally by Turkish engineers. This capability is a major power multiplier for the Turkish military so that it does not depend on the production of other countries.
The Kizilelma Bayraktar, designed to be airborne for 5 hours with a mission radius of 500 nm, will also have high situational awareness with today's state-of-the-art AESA radars. “This is the Bayraktar Kizilelma unmanned fighter, which is bigger and more agile,” Selcuk Bayraktar said in March.