TAI ANKA
The first nationally designed Turkish MALE drone, ANKA paved the way for Turkey's UAV industry, becoming the benchmark ISR and UCAV platform for the Turkish Armed Forces and many export customers.
Community
Data trust
- Reliability
- Unverified
- Sources
- Sources pending review
Identity
- Designation
- TAI ANKA
- Alias
- ANKA-S / ANKA-B
- Manufacturer
- Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI/TUSAŞ)
- Country
- Turkey
- Year
- 2013
- Category
- UCAV (Combat UAV)
- Class
- MALE (Medium-altitude / long-endurance)
- Status
- In service
Performance
- Range
- 250 km
- Endurance
- 24 h
- Top speed
- 217 km/h
- Service ceiling
- 9,100 m
- Propulsion
- Motore turbodiesel PD170 (170 hp, sviluppato in Turchia)
Physical characteristics
- MTOW
- 1700 kg
- Payload
- 350 kg
- Hardpoints
- 4
- Weapons
- MAM-L, MAM-C, MAM-T, Bozok, Cirit
Onboard systems
- Sensors
- EO/IR ASELFLIR-300T, SAR/GMTI, SIGINT/COMINT
- Datalink / control
- SATCOM Türksat 4B + LOS criptato
- Launch
- Pista
- Recovery
- Pista (atterraggio automatico ATOL)
Combat use
- ▸Operation Pençe-Kilit against PKK in northern Iraq (2022-present)
- ▸Foreign sales to Tunisia, Kazakhstan and Chad as a MALE export drone
Tags
Main operators
History
The ANKA program began in 2004 as Turkey's answer to the US refusal to export the MQ-1 Predator, with first flight in December 2010.
The ANKA-S variant in 2017 introduced a SATCOM datalink on Türksat 4B, making ANKA the first Turkish drone with beyond-line-of-sight control capability.
TAI's ANKA is the cornerstone of Turkey's UAV industry: born from the US Predator embargo, it allowed TUSAŞ to develop in-house engines (PD170), avionics, datalinks and sensors — an ecosystem later exploited by the Aksungur and ANKA-3 families.
The ANKA family includes the ANKA-B (baseline), ANKA-S (SATCOM), ANKA-I (SIGINT) and the most recent ANKA Aksungur ASW variants, with over 100 units produced and documented use in counter-terrorism operations in southeast Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria against the PKK and ISIS.