The Anka-3 drone. Source: Turkish Aerospace Industries.
Turkey’s state-of-the-art Anka-3 stealth jet-powered combat drone has reportedly successfully completed its maiden flight.
The flight was not officially announced. However, a video showing the Anka-3 flying over the Turkish capital, Ankara, appeared on social media on December 28. During its maiden flight, the drone was escorted by another unidentified aircraft.
The Anka-3, which features a flying-wing design, was developed by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in light of the experience gained from the Anka-1 and 2, Aksungur, combat drones which have more traditional designs.
The drone was mainly developed to carry out deep pinpoint strikes as well as suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses missions. It was first unveiled by TAI last March.
According to available information, the Anka-3 operates at 40 thousand feet and can fly at up to 44 thousand. It will be also able to reach speeds as high as 0.7 mach and stay in the air for about ten hours. The drone has a maximum take-off weight of six and a half tons and will have a payload capacity of around 200 kg.
During taxi tests earlier this year, the drone was spotted carrying two Şimşek high-speed target drones, also developed by TAI.
The design of the Anka-3 can be compared to that of the United States Northrop Grumman X-47B, Russia’s Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik-B and China’s Hongdu GJ-11.
In the last few years, Turkey became one of the world’s key developers and manufacturers of reconnaissance and combat drones. Still, the country will likely face serious difficulties while developing the Anka-3, due to the complications typically associated with the design of stealth aircraft.
meanwhile russia develops shovels, 3rd generation.
and those are some deadly shovels indeed at 500k ukranians dead and counting.
was that intended as a joke? in case you were wondering the lancets have amassed quite the world record in knocking out uki armor/ soft skin vehicles and artillery, bunkers and what not. i don’t believe anyone will be beating this record anytime soon.
nato has developed 5th generation stealth flying shovels that cost 1 trillion
looks great unlike russian drones that look some pieces of heavy metals joined together waiting to be fallen apart.
russians already using this type of drone with jet engine.
if the box should ever really become ready for production, erdo can send it on its maiden flight against bibi and make a portion of jerusalem salad from the idf
allahu akbar
türkei ist nato und die türkei bildet israelische soldaten in der türkei aus. die werden niemals israel bekämpfen.
sprostý turek ich zase bude chcieť testovať na ukrajine? nemal by to radšej skúsiť v sýrii, alebo v gaze? v sýrii proti teroristom ktorých podporujú usa. a gaze zaser proti sionistom, ktorých zhodou okolností zase len podporujú usa. ako mi to náhoda čo poviete?
impressive from turkey, other than the goose stuck to the windscreen…
it doesn’t look very stealthy, with those rectangular cutouts, protruding bits and unclean edges.