From TB2 to KIZILELMA: Türkiye’s Journey from Armed Drones to Unmanned Combat Aircraft

Over the last decade, much of Türkiye’s defence story has been written in the sky.
When Ankara could not procure armed Predator-type UAVs from the US, it decided to build its own ecosystem – and today, with TB2, Akinci, TB3 and the jet-powered Kizilelma unmanned combat aircraft, Türkiye is playing in a different league.

In this article, we follow the path “from TB2 to Kizilelma” step by step.

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1. Need Born from Embargoes: The Birth of TB2

At the end of the 2000s, after failing to obtain armed Predator UAVs from the US, Türkiye moved from being a “buyer” to becoming a designer of its own armed drones. Following Baykar’s early tactical UAV efforts (Çaldıran/TB1), the Bayraktar TB2 emerged in the MALE class.

• First flight: 2014
• Class: MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) armed UAV
• Users: Turkish Armed Forces and more than 30 other countries
• Units produced: Over 600

According to Baykar, the TB2 set a record in 2019 with a 27 hours 3 minutes nonstop demo flight in Kuwait and exceeded 1 million flight hours by 2024.

On the battlefields of Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine, the TB2 pushed Türkiye to the centre of the global drone map.

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2. After TB2, the Heavyweight: Bayraktar Akinci

The experience gained with the TB2 paved the way for a heavier, higher-flying platform with a much larger payload capacity: Bayraktar Akinci.

• First flight: 6 December 2019
• Entry into service: 29 August 2021
• MTOW: Over 5.5 tonnes, payload capacity above 1,350 kg

Akinci is a high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UCAV; unlike the TB2, it is a twin-engine turboprop heavy platform:

• It can carry heavy munitions such as the SOM cruise missile and KGK-SİHA-82.
• It carried out its first combat missions in 2022.
• In 2025, it flew for the first time with the MURAD AESA radar, gaining much more advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground sensing capability.

In short, Akinci took Türkiye from the TB2 era into the “heavy UCAV” club.

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3. The Naval Dimension: TB3 and the World’s First “Drone Carrier” TCG Anadolu

The third act of the story unfolds at sea. After it became clear that F-35B aircraft would not be delivered, Türkiye reconfigured its amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu into a “drone carrier / SİHA ship” concept.

The star of this concept is Bayraktar TB3:

• TB3 is an improved, navalised derivative of TB2, adapted for shipboard operations.
• In November 2024, it performed its first take-off and landing on the deck of TCG Anadolu.
• This made TCG Anadolu one of the first operational drone carriers in the world.

This step showed that Türkiye is building unmanned air power not only over land but also from the sea.

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4. A New League: The Jet-Powered Unmanned Combat Aircraft KIZILELMA

TB2 and Akinci are predominantly focused on air-to-ground missions.
The Bayraktar Kizilelma project, launched by Baykar in 2021 with its own resources, takes things to a new level: a jet-powered unmanned combat aircraft.

• Project start: 2021 (funded by Baykar)
• First flight: 14 December 2022, Çorlu
• Mission concept: Air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, low radar cross-section, high speed, autonomous mission capability
• Target users: Both Turkish Air Force and Navy, with a strong focus on operations from TCG Anadolu and similar ships.

One of Kizilelma’s most striking ambitions is to act as a “loyal wingman”: an unmanned teammate that flies with KAAN and modernised F-16s, extending their sensors and weapons.

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5. A World First: KIZILELMA’s BVR Air-to-Air Shot

Towards the end of 2025, Kizilelma hit the headlines again, this time with its air-to-air capability.

During a test over the Black Sea:

• Kizilelma used the MURAD AESA radar to detect a jet-powered target aircraft,
• Engaged the target with GOKDOGAN, a beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air missile developed by TÜBİTAK-SAGE,
• And successfully destroyed the target, marking the first time in the world that an unmanned combat aircraft shot down a jet-powered aerial target with a BVR missile.

This shot carried Türkiye’s UAV story from the TB2 era to the level of an unmanned combat aircraft with a confirmed air-to-air kill.

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6. From TB2 to KIZILELMA: The Picture of an Ecosystem

Looking back, Türkiye’s UAV journey is not a collection of isolated projects; it is the story of a coherent ecosystem:

• TB2: A medium-class, high-volume SİHA that introduced the armed drone concept to the world.
• Akinci: A heavy HALE UCAV with large payload capacity and cruise-missile capability.
• TB3 + TCG Anadolu: A combination that brings unmanned air power to sea in the form of a drone carrier.
• Kizilelma: A jet-powered, low-observable unmanned combat aircraft capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, with a world-first BVR air-to-air shot.

In the coming years, as the KAAN national fighter, national air-to-air missiles (BOZDOĞAN–GOKDOGAN) and new radar/space-based communication systems are added to this picture, the path from TB2 to Kizilelma will remain one of the main backbones of Türkiye’s air power.

BuzzTurk will keep following every step of this journey: new tests, exports, sea–air integration and the evolution of manned–unmanned teaming concepts.