Baykar Technologies
| Baykar Technologies
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Anonim şirket |
| founding | 1984 |
| Seat | Istanbul , Turkey |
| management | Haluk Bayraktar ( CEO ) others: Selçuk Bayraktar ( CTO ) and Ahmet Bayraktar |
| Number of employees | 750 |
| Branch | Drones, avionics, control systems, training programs |
| Website | www.baykarsavunma.com |
Baykar Technologies (Turkish: Baykar Makina) is a company founded in Turkey in 1984 that offers drones , suitable control systems and training programs for their use.
history
The company was founded in 1984 and initially worked as a supplier to the automotive industry. The company name Baykar is made up of the three first letters of Bayraktar and Kardeşler .
A US export ban on key technologies for building so-called "killer drones" prevented the Turkish military from purchasing such systems. For example, the then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tried to buy American Predator drones in the 2010s . Baykar began its own development program under the direction of Selçuk Bayraktar, who was previously a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. A key element in the construction of armed drones is the control system for guiding the bombs and missiles used. The " Hornet " system of the American group L3 Harris , patent pending in 2014 , was sold by its subsidiary EDO MBM Technology in the United Kingdom according to press research Baykar. In December 2015, Baykar completed the first successful test of the use of so-called micro-ammunition from the Turkish company Roketsan by an in-house drone.
Baykar drones became an important part of the Turkish military strategy and were used, among other things, on a large scale against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria during the Turkish military offensive on Afrin in early 2018. The Bayraktar TB2 model , with its flight time of more than 24 hours, an altitude of up to 7300 meters and an armament of up to 150 kg total weight, was stylized as an object of national pride.
Baykar also supplied the TB2 model to the troops of the Libyan National Army in the civil war in Libya since 2014 and also to Ukraine at the end of 2019 .
Baykar has been repeatedly accused of profiting from nepotism by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. At the beginning of 2020, for example, the Turkish government approved funds equivalent to US $ 100 million for Baykar to advance drone research, with Selçuk Bayraktar, as Baykar's head of development, also being Erdoğan's son-in-law, while another son-in-law of the president, Berat Albayrak , is at the same time Minister of Finance of the government acted.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c "baykar - About us" baykardefence.com, accessed March 4, 2020
- ↑ "baykar - Management" baykardefence.com, accessed on March 4, 2020
- ↑ "Özdemir Bayraktar" baykardefence.com accessed on March 2, 2020
- ↑ "Baykar" catalog p. 7
- ↑ a b c Dan Sabbagh and Bethan McKernan: "Revealed: how UK technology fueled Turkey's rise to global drone power" theguardian of November 27, 2019
- ↑ Emre Gurkan Abay: "Turkey exports armed drones to Ukraine" aa.com.tr of November 8, 2019
- ↑ Zvi Bar'el: "Analysis Syria Conflict Is Shifting From a Proxy War to a clash of Super Powers" haaretz.com from March 5, 2020