Screenshot from a Baykar video showing the Turkish LHD Anadolu with its intended Bayraktar TB3 and Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned aircraft wing. (Baykar)
Turkey has showcased the mainly unmanned air wing that will operate from its newly inducted TCG Anadolu (L 400), displaying the two unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) types it intends to fly from the ‘aircraft carrier'.
The commissioning ceremony for the landing helicopter dock (LHD) held on 10 April at Sedef Shipyard in Tuzla, Istanbul, saw both the Baykar Bayraktar TB3 and Baykar Kızılelma UCAVs positioned on the flight deck, alongside the manned helicopters the ship will also field.
Based on the Spanish Juan Carlos I-class landing platform dock (LPD) design, TCG Anadolu was originally intended by Turkey to operate the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
Turkey was expelled from the F-35 programme in 2019, having refused US demands that it not acquire the Russian S-400 ground-based air-defence system for fear it may compromise the security of the ‘fifth-generation' stealth jet, and with construction of the Anadolu already under way, it was decided that the ship should carry domestically developed unmanned aircraft instead.
With Turkey's Baykar rapidly establishing itself as a global leader in the field of unmanned aircraft systems, the turboprop TB3 and jet-powered Kızılelma have been selected as the two primary types to be flown from TCG Anadolu.
Images posted online by the manufacturer on 27 March showed the TB3 for the first time. A larger and more capable successor to the TB2, the TB3 can fold its wings for operations aboard TCG Anadolu
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