ANKA-3, the new Turkish stealth drone, had its maiden flight

Developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), the ANKA-3 is an unmanned combat aircraft designed primarily for intelligence and ground attack missions. Videos uploaded to social networks show that the new Turkish drone, shaped like a flying wing, had its first test flight today.

TUSAŞ tarafından geliştirilen insansız savaş uçağımız Anka III, bugün ilk uçuşunu başarıyla gerçekleştirdi. İnşallah uçağımız, sahip olduğu gelişmiş teknolojilerle, tasarımıyla ve özellikleriyle ülkemizin savunmasına çok güçlü bir katkı sağlayacak. ???????? pic.twitter.com/ElZaSoNRVo

— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) December 28, 2023

ANKA-3 is the third member of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) family developed at Turkish Aerospace Industries’ facilities. It is a UAV system that is faster thanks to its low-by-pass turbofan engine and more discreet to radars thanks to its flying wing design.

TAI claims that the ANKA-3 will be able to perform numerous missions, such as reconnaissance, surveillance and intelligence; attack with different air-to-ground munitions; fighter scout engaging enemy helicopters, propeller planes and UAVs with air-to-air munitions; neutralization of enemy radars and air defense systems; protection of friendly forces in the air and on the ground; signals and communications intelligence; electronic warfare and communications relay with other friendly elements.

In the armed configuration, the ANKA-3 system will be able to carry 650 kg of ammunition in each of the two fuselage stations, 650 kg in each of the inner wing stations and 100 kg in each of the outer stations. In this way, it will be possible to integrate a wide range of options, from the most commonly used ammunition on today’s UAVs to large ammunition such as SOM-J, MK-82 and MK 82 class, SDB.

The ground systems used in the ANKA and AKSUNGUR UAVs were taken as a basis and an additional new software system was integrated. In this context, the ANKA-3 system can be controlled with the same ground systems as ANKA and AKSUNGUR. This paves the way for the use of the common missions of these three systems as complementary elements.