Baykar's AKINCI and Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles carried out landings and take-offs on the Manisa-Balıkesir Highway within the scope of emergency scenarios. According to a post by Selçuk Bayraktar on his X account, this capability will be brought to all national platforms in the coming period.
Bayraktar stated: "Our AKINCI and Bayraktar TB2 aircraft carried out landings and take-offs on the Manisa-Balıkesir Highway within the scope of emergency scenarios. We will bring this capability to all our national platforms in the coming period." Selçuk Bayraktar also thanked his teammates who contributed to this work in his post.
Why Is the Ability to Land and Take Off on a Highway Important?
The landing and take-off of AKINCI and Bayraktar TB2 on a highway indicates that a critical threshold has been crossed in terms of the operational flexibility of unmanned aerial vehicles. The most important aspect of this test is that it points to the ability of UAVs to use highways as alternative runways in emergencies, without remaining dependent solely on large military or civilian airports.
This capability provides strategic redundancy against the risk of air bases being struck or rendered unusable, particularly in situations such as wartime or natural disasters. A Ukrainian military analyst had previously stated that only large civilian airports were suitable for heavy UAVs such as AKINCI, while military bases were "theoretically" sufficient. This test shows that such limitations can be overcome. Baykar's goal of bringing this capability to all national platforms in the coming period reveals that Türkiye is pursuing a long-term strategy aimed at increasing runway independence and distributed operations capability in its UAV operations.
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