Turkish armed drone's documentary to be released Sunday

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - The first Turkish unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) Akinci's documentary will be released on Sunday, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al Fitr.

The documentary, also named AKINCI, will include development phases of the UCAV, and be shared via the owner company Baykar's YouTube channel, Baykar Technologies.

It will be released at 20.23 local time (1723GMT), referring to the country's 100th foundation anniversary in 2023.

Selcuk Bayraktar, the chief technology officer of Baykar, released two trailers of the documentary on his Twitter account this week.

AKINCI, directed by Altug Gultan and Burak Aksoy, was shot in a 15-month-period in Baykar's facilities in the Turkish metropolitan city of Istanbul and northwestern Tekirdag province.

It covers a six-month period -- till Dec. 6, 2019 -- when it flew for the first time.

The documentary narrates studies of Bayraktar and leaders of engineering departments.

Akinci UCAV's first prototype PT-1 made its second flight on Jan. 10 and the second prototype PT-2's integration has recently been completed.

The UCAV, which can fly for 24 hours, has a 40,000-feet service ceiling, 20-meter (65-feet) wingspan, and capacity for carrying 1,350-kilogram (2,976-pound) of useful load.

Akinci, with a take-off weight of 5,500 kilograms (12,125 pounds), has two 450-hp engines, and it is configurable for 750-hp engines or locally-made 240-hp engines.

With the Akinci UCAV, Turkey will become one of the three countries which can produce this type of UAVs.

It will provide high flight safety with its fully automatic flight control and triple-redundant auto-pilot systems.

Akinci, equipped with locally-made AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar and air-to-air missiles Gokdogan and Bozdogan, can launch several locally-made ammo, such as SOM (stand-off) cruise missile for startegic targets.

The vehicle can collect and save data from its sensors and cameras due to six artificial intelligence (AI) computers.

It will detect land targets, which cannot be seen by human eyes, and fly without a GPS, with its AI systems.