"Bayraktar": dive to complete bankruptcy
Well, it turns out that the NWO performed by Russia hits the Turkish enterprise, and not just hits, but from the foot. And how beautiful it all began ... And what a continuation ...
But we'll go in order.
The most famous product of Baykar (“Baykar”) is the same “Bayraktar” TB2, that is, simply “Bayraktar”. The drone is not new to the market and in the sky, it managed to fight from the heart. The whole question is how successful.
Even earlier, I was very skeptical about what kind of hype was raised around this drum drone, but there's nothing to be done about it. First, Azerbaijan staged a strong PR campaign during the next conflict with Armenia, then the Turks themselves added, then it was the turn of Ukraine. And then again Turkey, which I had the honor to report to you here:
Drone carrier: aircraft carrier laughter and tears in Turkish
But laughter is laughter, and they buy a drone. Not countries with top armies, but they are buying. Poland, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, Ukraine ... The latter, of course, is doubtful, when Ukraine bought something from us, they give it everything anyway. But the Turks could take the money, they know how.
Well, more than 20 countries are in line to buy. And here the Turks may be in trouble, because a number of countries may definitely refuse to purchase. However, the main troubles are not even in this, although everything is in the complex here.
"Bayraktar" fought. Syria, Libya, Iraq, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine. Somewhere successful, somewhere not very good. In general, the "Bayraktars" showed themselves well where they were not in danger. But it's one thing to drive the Kurdish guerrillas and the Syrian militia, it's another thing to have the Libyan People's Army and regular Syrian troops as opponents. Where more or less decent air defense was present, Bayraktars fell from heaven to earth quite normally.
And what began in Ukraine, except as a continuous PR, you can’t name it. And the air defense systems were destroyed, and the MLRS, and howitzers, and even Pantsiri-S1. But the destruction of FOUR Russian Raptor-class boats and one Chamois-class landing craft by Bayraktars became epic.
Raptor-class patrol boat
Project 11770 landing craft "Serna"
No, except for jokes: can you believe that with one ATGM or a pair of 20-kg bombs you can sink a ship that is easily dragging a tank or two infantry fighting vehicles / armored personnel carriers or a company of marines?
Of course, these defeats hit the Bayraktars very hard, since certain doubts appeared in the press (not ours) that a boat with a displacement of 100 tons could be destroyed with the onboard armament of the Bayraktar. Excuse me, you still have to manage to get into the Raptor, with its size and speed.
Yes, the Ukrainian side provided video reports on which something hit the boats, some lumps flew, but the fact of the sinking of five boats is not confirmed by anything, except for indistinct videos. That is - not confirmed at all.
Meanwhile, in Turkey, on this optimistic wave and under the influence of interest in Bayraktar, it was quite logical to decide to invest in production and laid the foundation for a production plant in Istanbul drones. It was planned to produce two models - Bayraktar itself and Akinchi. The plant cost 600 million lire, or $100 million. Decent money.
The money had to pay off, since the interest in Bayraktar was and was constantly warmed up. As a result, the miracle drone, allegedly in no way inferior to the American "Reaper" in terms of combat capabilities, but much cheaper, has become a kind of icon of our time.
As I understand it, the Turks also fell under the influence of their own advertising and believed that Bayraktar would make them rich. The construction of the plant began, expensive equipment was purchased, which was supposed to pay off in eight years, according to all calculations and plans.
In general, the bet was made very logically, because Baikar was ahead of all Turkish manufacturers of military equipment, earning $2021 million in 664. Basically, the profit was brought by export deals, from which Baikar received about 80% of the profit.
The bet was made not only on "Bayraktar", but also on "Akinchi". Unlike "Bayraktar", "Akinchi" is not so well known, although the project is very promising.
Akinchi is the fruit of the joint work of Baikar Makina and the Ukrainian Motor Sich. The device is equipped with a Ukrainian AI-450S turboprop engine, this is the contribution of the Ukrainian side. The Turkish-Ukrainian drone made its first flight in December 2019. In 2021, the Akinci was adopted by Turkey.
Akinchi weighs 5 kg, of which 500 kg is payload, 1350 kg in the bomb bay, and another 400 kg at eight external hardpoints. Two 950 hp engines everyone is allowed to do it. The drone is equipped with its own radar with AFAR and an aiming system from Aselsan.
In addition to Ukraine, Qatar, Azerbaijan and Malaysia showed interest in Akinchi. There have been reports in the Turkish press that the pre-order portfolio for drones is 46 for Bayraktar and 36 for Akinci. Plus 28 control stations, at the rate of one station for three UAVs.
During the year, in addition to three pre-production experimental devices, six more Akinchi were assembled for the Turkish armed forces. "Akinchi" has been combat tested in operations against the Kurds in northern Iraq.
And now, after relatively successful applications against the Kurds and detachments of Nagorno-Karabakh, losses in Libya and Ukraine somewhat tarnished the reputation of the Baikar devices. Plus, there are competitors who offer products for a similar purpose.
For example, Tajikistan has chosen a very interesting Iranian-made device for itself.
"Ababil" due to its versatility, cheapness in production, structural simplicity and efficiency can be a valuable tool in guerrilla warfare. An apparatus with one engine and a pusher propeller can very easily be converted into a projectile with 40-50 kg of explosive, which it can deliver to a distance of up to 250 km.
"Ababil" has already been noted in Sudan, Yemen and Lebanon, and its use has been appreciated. And the price is very different from Turkish drones, because Iran also decided to play in the regional market, offering its drones to everyone.
Well, how without China? China is also very actively developing the Arab-Persian market, offering its devices, including heavy strike UAVs.
Russia is also beginning to indicate movements in this market, offering the Orion-E UAV in reconnaissance and strike versions. The Orion has also been tested by combat operations in Syria and Ukraine.
So the Turks today have a very difficult time. The presence of such a number of competitors in the market obliges.
And today in Turkey, in addition to assembling the devices themselves, they are actively working on new schemes for the use of drones. For example, "Akinchi", which two engines allow to climb high and carry an impressive combat load, plays the role of a carrier, and "Bayraktar" highlights targets with the help of its quantum equipment. This allows the more expensive Akinchi to theoretically stay out of enemy air defense coverage.
In 2022, Akinchi dropped an LGK-9 guided aerial bomb from a height of 150 m, which successfully hit a target illuminated by Bayraktar.
The range of Akinchi products used includes KGK-SIHA-82. This is an ordinary free-falling aerial bomb, which was equipped with a homing head and wings. As a result, a bomb weighing 340 kg hit a target 30 km from the drop site.
The airborne radar with AFAR will allow Akinchi to use air-to-air missiles, which are rapidly adapting to UAVs.
Today, Akinci is the largest of the Turkish UAVs.
At the same time, it favorably differs in height and flight duration. On tests "Akinchi" in flight, which lasted 20 hours and 23 minutes, gained a height of 13 meters. But it was a flight of an experimental model on British engines, with a power of 716 hp. each.
And now it's time to talk about engines. More precisely, their absence.
Akinchi was designed for a pair of AI-450MS engines developed by Zaporozhye enterprises Ivchenko-Progress and manufactured by Motor Sich. Alas, both enterprises were practically put out of action by Russian cruise missile strikes.
And so "Akinchi" was without engines. Naturally, the Turks began to look for alternative options, but alas, with all the criticism of everything Ukrainian, the AI-450MS turned out to be very technologically advanced and it was not easy to find a replacement for them.
Apparently, Baikar took the path of installing a more powerful, but expensive engine, but it was not easy to take it. Now Turkey has a rather sad period of parting with Western engine suppliers. The Austrian Rotax was left without Bayraktar engines, the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products, which owns Rotax, announced the termination of the supply of these engines to Turkey.
The Canadians reacted very negatively to the use of Bayraktars without their consent in the Azerbaijani army. After another conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Canadians stopped supplying engines. And at the same time they cut off oxygen in terms of Wescam MX-15D thermal imagers and TP6 engines from the Canadian branch of Pratt & Whitney. These engines are up to 1250 hp. it was planned to be installed on training aircraft for the Turkish Air Force.
By the way, about thermal imagers: it turned out to be very unpleasant. I also had to look for ways to solve the problem. It seems to have been found. The Bayraktars began to install electro-optical sighting systems CATS (Common Aperture Targeting System) of the Turkish arms concern Aselsan. But even here a problem arose: the complexes were originally developed for helicopters, and the use on UAVs did not give optimal performance, a lot had to be finalized and reworked.
In addition, they had to do their best to double the number of CATS produced, which turned out to be not a very pleasant surprise for the concern.
The Turks are getting out with engines, the Turkish-made PD-170 engine with a capacity of 170 hp will be installed on the Bayraktar. This is even better than the Rotax 912, which has only 100 hp.
But for "Akinchi" everything is sad. There is another development, PD-222. This engine seems to be "on the way", but its power is only 250 hp. And the PD-222 cannot be compared with the Zaporozhye AI-450MS.
In principle, Turkey still hopes that Ukrainian engine builders will “lick their wounds” and be able to produce much-needed engines for Akinci. In general, the Ukrainians, most likely, are completely “for” the continuation of cooperation. But Caliber is putting an end to this whole undertaking now and there are no guarantees that they will not put it up again later.
Well, it will be quite unpleasant for Turkey that Zaporozhye will become part of a certain conglomerate of pro-Russian territories in the future.
Agree, 250 hp. instead of 450 - it's very sad. And you can forget about many things, including the sale of "Akinchi" for good money.
Yes, who said that import substitution is easy?
It is worth noting that the Turkish engineers and designers somehow did not succeed with the engines initially, and not a single project was brought to perfection.
The result is a very unpleasant situation: the plant for the production of Bayraktar and Akinci may turn out to be a black hole, where millions of Turkish liras will fall into. If everything is more or less normal with Bayraktar, then Akinchi, left without engines and thermal imaging equipment, may cease to represent such a serious device for serious money.
Of course, the Turks will do everything possible to replace the Austrian-Canadian engines, the question is that there is nothing special to replace them with.
And, strange as it may sound, but all hope is for Ukraine. The Ukrainians did not quarrel with the Canadians and they have no problems with thermal imagers. And maybe there will be engines. If Russia once again does not spoil everything.
This refers to the promising developments of Ivchenko-Progress on the modernization of the same AI-450 by installing a second turbocharger, which will allow removing up to 1000 hp from the engine. There is also a very promising AI-500 turbojet engine, whose power is estimated at 700 hp. The whole question is only in the ability to produce these motors and deliver them to Turkey.
But it seems to me that Ukraine, as a supplier and consumer for Turkey, is lost. Not today, but by the end of the NWO for sure. The purchase of assembly kits for Bayraktars, attempts at production - all this will remain in the past.
But more and more technical problems are added to operational and marketing problems. Yes, if the Ukrainian media had not lied so godlessly about the "incomparable fighting qualities" of the same TV2, then perhaps everything was not so bad.
However, terrible tales about the colossal successes of Bayraktar in Ukraine against the backdrop of the loss of UAV drones do not add positive aspects, rather, on the contrary. A drone with a combat load of 95 kg (do not forget that the 150 kg payload also includes an aiming module weighing 55 kg), destroying columns of armored vehicles and sinking boats right and left - well, a little not those times today to believe for dollars in such.
Turkish manufacturers have serious problems with engines, thermal imagers and marketing. And it may well turn out that “Bayraktar”, about which literally six months ago they spoke, as some kind of “miraculousweapons", will cause considerable losses to the Baikar Makina company.
In general, it's fair. Marketing today is not an absolute and perfect deception. Especially in terms of weapons. Especially with regard to UAVs that fall within the coverage area of the Russian Buk and Tor.
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