According to Daily Sabah, the Turkish military on Wednesday, October 20, received the first Aksungur, a domestically produced medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the top defense body head said.
The TAI Aksungur is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) for the Turkish Armed Forces. Using existing technology from the TAI Anka series of drones, it is the manufacturer’s largest drone with payload capacity for mission-specific equipment. It is intended to be used for long-term surveillance, signals intelligence, maritime patrol missions, or as an unmanned combat aerial vehicle. TAI integrates weapon packages and put the Aksungur into production in early 2020. The Aksungur marked an important milestone in August 2021 when it reached 1,000 flight hours.
The MALE UAV, which embarked on its maiden flight in 2019, has been integrated with three different EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infra-Red) cameras, two different SATCOM Teber laser guidance products by Roketsan, locally developed Precision Guidance Kit-82s (HGK-82), and the domestic engine PD170. The drone previously carried and test-fired MK-82 ammunition with a Teber guidance kit weighing around 250 kilograms. It was the first drone to use Teber.