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Bayraktar TB2

2015 MODERN AIRCRAFT DRONE TECHNOLOGY

Story of Bayraktar TB2

Turkish officials have acknowledged the use of the Bayraktar TB2 at the operational level, and Turkey is the 6th country in the world to deploy a viable unmanned aerial vehicle (UCAV). It joins the United States, China, Pakistan, Israel and Iran in this field. These platforms offer significant advantages over their unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) counterparts - least of which is the armed capability to locate and destroy ground elements through precision strikes without endangering human pilots or their very expensive craft .

The TB2 is based on the earlier Bayraktar tactical unmanned aerial system, which first flew in 2009 and was launched in 2014. TB2 is a form of "armed reconnaissance" that has been used successfully against the PKK (Purdistan Workers' Party) - the first recorded in the "Killing" series on September 8, 2016, and more since.

Turkey has tried for years to acquire foreign-born UCAV platforms from the US and elsewhere, to no avail. As such, it turned to local industry to develop homegrown solutions to homegrown problems, which resulted in several noteworthy products: TAI Anka (described in detail elsewhere on this site) and TB2. The TB2 gained momentum in 2015, when it provided the weapons-carrying capability for the Bayraktar tactical unmanned aerial system.

This led to a court case in late 2015 and the official launch of the service in 2016. Since all jobs are local in nature, Turkey circumvents any strict gun regulations normally encountered with foreign purchases.

Furthermore, if the needs of the Turkish military require a more efficient long-term solution, the TB2 can be further developed.

The completed TB2 sees the straight-wing main aircraft amidships and aft in a slender nose cone arrangement. The engine is housed in a well-contoured casing at the rear of the fuselage - the engine air intakes pass through small grooves in the surface of the casing. The engine drives a two-bladed propeller unit in a "propeller" configuration. The double cantilevered stern is designed to expose the engine unit and its propeller. The outriggers are slender, emanating from the trailing edge of the wing root and held together at the rear of the aircraft by attached, inwardly swept vertical fins that also serve as de facto horizontal planes.

The wheeled landing gear is fixed in flight, and an optical bubble can be seen on the fuselage bellyline.

TB2 appears to use well-established drone design and construction practices - from exterior layout to interior construction. It is further classified as a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned system.

Operators control the aircraft from a ground control station (GCS), and some autonomous capabilities are built into the flight components.

The aircraft has a pair of underwing hardpoints, one on each wing, that can carry various types of ammunition, including anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) and laser-guided bombs (LGB). All of this contributes to the precision strike capabilities coveted by today's militaries.

In addition to being able to self-identify and attack ground targets, the series has also been used to laser mark missile targets for Turkish Army attack helicopters such as the US-made HueyCobra.