.Today we are covering some of the engineering behind drone warfare, Turkey has become one of the largest exporters of armed drones and they are constructing them at a colossal rate. How did Turkey build such an insane inventory of arms exports and what does it mean for the military industry?
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transformed into an industrial Behemoth
and today its heavy industry sector is
comparable to that of France Spain and
the United Kingdom surprisingly it is
also aggressively competing for the
world's number six spot in weapons
exports and it is literally beating
Israel the world's third largest
exporter of multi-purpose military
drones nearly 35 countries use Turkish
made drones such as the bakar tb2 which
has proven to be quite effective in
numerous War zones in the past few years
including Ukraine which actually
supplies the engines for some of the
drones made by bayra darar despite the
ongoing War this colossal achievement in
manufacturing weapons and other heavy
Industries was a result of turkey's
president RP teip eran's announcement
when he first became prime minister of
the country back in 2003 this led us to
wonder how turkey built the world's
largest army of armed drones and why are
these drones so
popular today the Turkish Army is the
second largest standing military force
in NATO after the US armed forces and
the 13th in the world mind you the only
reason it ranks 13th and not 6th or 7th
is due to its lack of nuclear weapons
which it possesses indirectly via its
NATO membership and US nuclear bases on
its territories technically speaking any
army in the world that engages Europe in
a non-nuclear war has to face the
Turkish Armed Forces before facing the
music of the US military ironically this
might sound odd and quite strange for
many because turkey is an Islamic
country country and nearly 96% of its 90
million residents are Muslim turkey is
also obsessed with manufacturing its own
weapons and does export a very wide
range of modern military equipment and
ammunition such as the alte main battle
tank the terx Infantry carrier vehicle
the pars amphibious armored combat
vehicle the tper heavy infantry Fighting
Vehicle the Kaplan lightweight tank
the barbaros class frig the tiai austa
Westland t129 at AK all-weather attack
helicopter the harar family surfac to a
missile system the
t155 self-propelled Howitzer the tiai
hure jet supersonic Advanced trainer and
lightweight combat aircraft and you name
it because this list goes on and on
additionally it's Army Bo boasts more
drones than All European nations
combined with more than 200 tb2 and tb3
drones and countless other indigenous
types such as the tiai Anka tii Anka 3
and tii axer which are expensive and
quite Advanced just to put things in
perspective for you the UK has a drone
Fleet of just 10 us-made Reapers that
are two decades old mind you that even
though the tb2 and tb3 cost $5 to8
million they feature some quite Advanced
Technologies and are quite complex
before we get into the details of
turkey's top military drones we do have
to tell you that there is only one
University graduate behind this whole
success in terms of engineering a man
whose Master's thesis demonstrated an
algorithm that could land an unmanned
helicopter in very rough terrain and
even vertically on a wall The Godfather
of turkey's military drone success is
celuk Bay RAR in 2005 celuk was a
26-year-old electrical engineering
graduate from turkey's top university 2
years later he obtained a master's
degree from the University of
Pennsylvania and a year later dropped
out of an MIT doctorate program because
he did not need it because in his head
he built the next cuttingedge technology
in Warfare luckily his family owned a
firm called bayar mcka which was started
by their father in 1984 to produce
automobile components as part of
turkey's efforts to manufacture cars by
the 2000s the company had begun to focus
on unmanned aerial Vehicles he is by all
means the Godfather of turkey's most
advanced drones and related Technologies
economically speaking military drones
contribute the Lion's Share of turkey's
military industrial complex export
revenues according to official figures
from 2022 turkey hit a record $4.4
billion in drone exports a figure that
is ironically larger than some European
countries entire annual defense budgets
this fact drove the country's total arms
exports in the same year to over $10
billion turkey is also projected to
achieve more than $7 billion from drone
deals by the end of 2023 which puts it
head-to-head with the likes of China and
America in drone exports according to
the Atlantic Council turkey is home to
some 2,000 companies in the weapons
manufacturing sector in August of this
year the country landed a $4 billion
deal that involved Manu manufacturing of
tb2 and tb3 drones in Saudi Arabia deals
with numerous other countries range from
the tens to billions of dollars let's
now decipher some of the top and most
exported Turkish drones the Drone that
put turkey on the map is the bayar tb2
which is a medium altitude long
endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicle
capable of remotely controlled or
autonomous flight operations the
aircraft is monitored and controlled by
an air crew in a ground control station
including weapons employment in November
2021 the tb2 Drone had completed 400,000
flight hours globally leading it to
become the flagship of the Turkish
military tb2 made its Maiden flight in
August 2014 on the 18th of December 2015
a video was published of a test firing
of a missile from the bay RAR TV tb2 and
later tests included laser guided bombs
the older version tb1 relied on imported
and regulated components and
Technologies such as Austria's rotax
9912 engines and Canadian opto
Electronics from West cam or hensold
from Germany however the tb2 and all its
components are made in Turkey the bay
RAR tb2 platform has a blended Wing body
design design with an inverted vtail
structure thrust is generated by a
variable pitch two blade propeller in
Pusher configuration the propeller is
mounted between the tail booms and
driven by an internal combustion engine
located in the body the monoco platform
is modular with detachable main items
such as Wing tail boom and vils the
fuselage pieces are made mostly of
carbon fiber composite with machined
aluminum parts as as joints fuel is
stored within bladder tanks and fuel
consumption is balanced with solenoid
valves The tb2 Ground Control station is
based on a NATO spec shelter unit which
is equipped with cross redundant command
and control systems the Next Generation
bayar bayar drone is the bayar tb3 UAV
made by Bay car despite the ongoing War
the tb3 is more advanced than the tb2 2
and is capable of short range landing
and takeoff it was created for the
purpose of deployment on turkey's first
aircraft carrier TCG anadolu which is
classified as an amphibious assault ship
and is quite similar to Spain's Juan
Carlos aircraft carrier this makes the
tb3 the naval version of the tb2 it is
powered by an engine developed by the
Turkish company Tage engine Industries
the Drone has a length of 8.35 5 m a
height of 2.6 m a wingspan of 14 m a
maximum takeoff weight of, 1450 kg a
payload capacity of 280 kg and a speed
of 300 kmph in terms of avionics it
features interchangeable EO IR LD
Imaging and targeting sensor systems or
multimode aesa radar the drone maker Bay
car which is dominating the scene is
currently also rapidly developing its
newest and most promising drone the
fighter UAV kizilelma which made its
Maiden flight in 2022 the kisel Elma is
14.6 M long and has a 9.7 m wingspan it
has an impressive range of 925 km an
operational altitude of more than 10 km
and a top speed of about 740 kmph the
fighter drone is also equipped with
Stealth Tech technologies that include
an angular design that gives it a low
radar cross-section and an internal
weapons Bay other Advanced features
include an active electronically scanned
array an antenna enabling both line of
sight and Beyond line of sight control
and the ability to take off and land
fully autonomously it is powered by the
subsonic AI 322f engine which is made by
the Ukrainian firm ivenko progress which
continues to fill orders despite the
ongoing War the kelma is expected to
carry a range of weapons including
Precision guided Munitions air-to-air
missiles and cruise missiles produced by
Turkish manufacturers other quite
powerful Turkish drones include the tiai
axer and tiai Anka which are made by
Turkish Aerospace Inc exclusively for
the Turkish armed forces and are quite
Advanced fast and deadly do you think
turkey will be able to become one of the
world's top three Advanced military
drone developers and exporters let us
know in the comments section thank you
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