The Turkish-produced Bayraktar TB2 drone systems have successfully passed testing flights in Ukraine and will be approved for service at Ukrainian combat units deployed to the war zone of Donbas, as the UkrOboronProm, the state-run defense production giant, reported on March 20.
The aerial vehicles were being tested since early March at the airfield of Starokostyantyniv in Khmelnytskiy Oblast, some 250 kilometers west of Kyiv. According to the concern, the Bayraktar drones have demonstrated strong performance, having successfully fulfilled all surveillance tasks and delivering a strike upon a ground target with its in-built weapons, missing the target point by no more than 1 meter.
“Its specifications put this drone among the best ones,” the UkrOboronProm quoted Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko as saying on March 20.
“Bayraktar has hit the world record among tactical medium-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles in terms of its long endurance in flight, with more than spent 24 hours in the sky at the altitude of eight kilometers. It is capable of carrying missile ordnance, successfully destroying enemy fortifications and notably seaborne targets.”
A Turkish-produced Bayrakatar unmanned aerial vehicle performs its ultimate testing flights at the airbase of Starokostantyniv on March 20, 2019.
Following the test, Poroshenko issued an order to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and Chief of General Staff Viktor Muzhenko “accelerate all necessary measures to train Ukrainian servicemen (to operate the drones),” and to accept the vehicles for service at Ukrainian frontline combat formations as soon as possible.
The $69 million deal to purchase 12 Bayraktar TB2 systems was struck in early November 2018, with a view to satisfy a dire, years-long need for modern unmanned aerial systems at the Ukraine’s Armed Forces amid ongoing static war with Russian-backed forces intensely using Russian-produced combat drones.
Six first drone complexes and three ground control stations are expected to be delivered from Turkey through 2019.
The Bayraktar family drones were initially introduced to the Turkish Armed Forces in 2014. Produced by Baykar Makina company, the drone systems are featured for their ability to sustain the flight for 24 hours at the speed of 110 kilometers non-stop.
As UkrOboronProm added, the Bayraktar also feature automatic takeoff/landing systems, which greatly simplifies the drone’s exploitation.
“Upon that, the drones is controlled via secure channels firmly protected from inceptions and are effectively defended from radio-electric jamming.”
The Bayraktar TB2 strike model were successfully tested by Turkish designers in late 2015, making Turkey the world’s sixth nation producing strike drones, along with the United States, China, Israel, Iran, and Pakistan. As soon as in September 2016, the Bayraktar TB2 recorded its first kill, during a Turkish operation against the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) waging a decades-long armed struggle against Ankara.
On Aug. 15, 2018, a Bayraktar TB2 was engaged in a Turkish operation to assassinate the senior PKK leader Ismail Ozden in Sinjar, northwestern Iraq.
