\u00a0The Bayraktar KIZILELMA Unmanned Fighter Aircraft, which
\nmarked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of global aviation,
\nsuccessfully completed its first firing test with an air-to-ground supersonic
\nmissile. During the test, which took place in Merzifon, KIZILELMA S2
\nsuccessfully struck its target with the JET-230 supersonic missile under its
\nwings.<\/p>\n
Baykar continues the development process of T\u00fcrkiye’s
\nfirst-ever unmanned fighter aircraft, Bayraktar KIZILELMA, by integrating new
\ncapabilities. As part of ongoing work at the 5th Main Jet Base Command in
\nMerzifon, Bayraktar KIZILELMA fired Roketsan’s JET-230 missile for the first
\ntime.<\/p>\n
FIRST FIRING WITH JET-230<\/p>\n
\u00a0Bayraktar KIZILELMA’s serial production model with the tail
\nnumber S2 departed the AKINCI Flight Training and Test Center in \u00c7orlu,
\nTekirda\u011f for the 5th Main Jet Base Command in Merzifon on 8 July 2026 to carry
\nout the firing test. Following a series of preparations and tests at the base,
\nthe unmanned fighter aircraft took off with two supersonic JET-230 missiles
\nunder its wings and headed toward the naval target to conduct the firing test.
\nBayraktar KIZILELMA subsequently fired its JET-230 missile from a distance of 120+
\nkilometers to strike its target precisely. As such, T\u00fcrkiye’s first unmanned
\nfighter aircraft passed yet another major threshold to demonstrate its ability
\nto conduct critical missions with air-to-ground supersonic munitions.<\/p>\n
\u00a0BAYRAKTAR: \u201cYET ANOTHER MILESTONE HAS
\nBEEN COMPLETED\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Baykar Chairman and CTO
\nSel\u00e7uk Bayraktar, who personally led the test, congratulated the test team
\nfollowing the successful firing: “Yet another milestone has been
\ncompleted. I wholeheartedly congratulate you, friends.”<\/p>\n
INTEGRATION OF
\nINDIGENOUS MUNITIONS GAINS MOMENTUM<\/p>\n
Bayraktar KIZILELMA has
\npreviously completed successful firing tests with the G\u00d6KDO\u011eAN air-to-air
\nmissile, as well as TOLUN, TEBER-82 KGK, and LGK-82 munitions. Having now also
\nsuccessfully struck its target with the JET-230 supersonic missile, Bayraktar
\nKIZILELMA is seeing the integration of indigenous munitions gain momentum. As a
\nresult, T\u00fcrkiye’s first unmanned fighter aircraft continues to increase its
\neffectiveness against a range of different targets.<\/p>\n
\u00a0KIZILELMA’S FIRST
\nAUTONOMOUS CLOSE-FORMATION FLIGHT<\/p>\n
In a test conducted on
\nDecember 27, 2025, Bayraktar KIZILELMA’s third prototype, PT3, and fifth
\nprototype, PT5, moved in coordination with one another thanks to intelligent
\nfleet autonomy algorithms developed by the Baykar team, carrying out a
\nformation flight (close-formation flight) with an autonomous combat pilot. As a
\nresult, for the first time in the history of global aviation, two unmanned
\nfighter aircraft performed an autonomous close-formation flight.<\/p>\n
\u00a0A FIRST IN AVIATION
\nHISTORY: AIR-TO-AIR STRIKE<\/p>\n
Bayraktar
\nKIZILELMA made history in global aviation during a test conducted on November
\n29, 2025. In the historic test, carried out off the coast of Sinop, KIZILELMA
\nscored a direct hit on a target aircraft \u2014 designated by ASELSAN’s MURAD AESA
\nRadar \u2014 using the G\u00d6KDO\u011eAN missile, developed by T\u00dcB\u0130TAK SAGE. In doing so,
\nKIZILELMA became the world’s first unmanned fighter aircraft to neutralize a
\njet-powered aerial target using a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile.<\/p>\n
\u00a0EXPORT CHAMPION<\/p>\n
Having
\nself-financed all its projects since its founding, Baykar continued to be the
\nworld’s largest exporter in the unmanned aerial vehicle segment in 2025.
\nMaintaining its leadership in the global UCAV market over the past three years,
\nBaykar broke its own record with an export volume of $2.2 billion in 2025.
\nDeriving 90% of its revenue from exports in recent years, Baykar has become the
\ndriving force of T\u00fcrkiye’s high-technology exports.<\/p>\n
\u00a0BAYKAR: THE WORLD’S LARGEST UAV COMPANY<\/p>\n
Having
\nranked among T\u00fcrkiye’s top 10 exporters across all sectors in 2023, 2024, and
\n2025 and received the Champions of Export Award, Baykar was the export leader
\nof T\u00fcrkiye’s defense and aerospace sector in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024,
\naccording to data from the Defense Industry Agency (SSB) and the Turkish
\nExporters Assembly (T\u0130M). Having single-handedly accounted for one-third of the
\nsector’s exports in 2023, Baykar went on to account for a quarter of the
\ndefense and aerospace sector’s total exports in 2024, propelling T\u00fcrkiye to a
\nleading position in the global UCAV export market. As the world’s largest
\nunmanned aerial vehicle company, Baykar has signed export agreements with a
\ntotal of 39 countries \u2014 36 countries for the Bayraktar TB2 UCAV and 16
\ncountries so far for the Bayraktar AKINCI UCAV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0The Bayraktar KIZILELMA Unmanned Fighter Aircraft, which marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[244,14,2086,34,2087],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-aerospace","tag-defence-industry","tag-defence-turkey","tag-news","tag-turkish-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}