Turkish drone maker Baykar to invest $300M to develop jet engine, CEO says

Turkish drone maker Baykar is devoting resources to bring more component production in-house amid industry supply chain pressures and will invest $300 million to develop jet engines, its chief executive told Reuters, Report informs.

Turkish-made Baykar drones have gained prominence globally after being used by Ukraine's military against Russian forces as well as in campaigns in Azerbaijan and North Africa.

The company has become one of the most prolific drone exporters worldwide with its light TB2 and heavy Akinci drones sold to 35 countries.

Baykar is currently focused on bringing production of as many components in-house as possible, CEO Haluk Bayraktar said in an interview on the sidelines of the SAHA defense exhibition in Istanbul on Wednesday, shortly before a deadly attack on Turkey's aerospace manufacturer TUSAS.

"With supply chain continuity a major issue worldwide, we're focused on in-house manufacturing. The missing piece is the engine and now we are beginning our own development project," Bayraktar said.

Baykar will invest $300 million over the next five years to develop a turboprop engine for the Akinci drone. It will follow this with a turbofan engine for Kizilelma, an unmanned air-to-air combat vehicle currently undergoing flight trials.

Akinci and Kizilelma currently use Ukrainian-built engines. The company has also recently signed an agreement with Ukraine's Ivchenko-Progress to separately co-develop a turbofan engine, Bayraktar said.

In the long term, the company is betting on autonomous, air-to-air combat-capable drones taking over fighter jets.

"There are 13,000 piloted fighter jets in the world, and we are betting that over the next four decades all of them will be autonomous," Bayraktar said.

"They'll be smaller, employed in riskier missions and easier to manufacture. Their numbers will be an order of magnitude higher than the fighter jets we have today," he added.

Baykar expects to complete a Ukrainian factory next year.

"We are 80% through with construction and machines are being ordered. Production date will be determined by the course of the war, but the facility will be ready in August 2025," Bayraktar said.

The factory is expected to produce TB2 or its heavier payload-capable variant TB3.

Baykar will keep the capacity on TB2 and Akinci production lines flat, and over the next few years invest in expanding TB3 and Kizilelma lines. Kizilelma is expected to go into serial production next year at 10 units.

Baykar's revenues were $2 billion last year, up from $1.4 the previous year, with 90% from foreign markets. The company accounts for around a third of Turkey's total defense and aerospace exports.