ANKA, produced by Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. (TUSAŞ) as a Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE) class UAV, has entered the inventories of the Naval and Air Forces and the General Command of the Gendarmerie. ANKA, entering into service with the Naval Forces and the Gendarmerie Command operates on the 200+ km “Line of Sight” communication systems; while the ANKA-S of the Air Forces is free of range constraints thanks to SATCOM satellite control feature. We talked with TUSAŞ General Manager Temel Kotil about ANKA’s characteristics as well as venues of export.

C4Defence: Each product has a prominent feature as it fulfils a requirement. What kind of features stand out with respect to ANKA?

TUSAŞ General Manager Temel Kotil: ANKA-S is a system to contribute strategic power to the Air Forces Command. Six air vehicles can be controlled simultaneously via satellite. Information and data security was elevated to a maximum. All communication systems feature encrypted data; while IFF and radio communications involve hardware encryption. Data recording is secured by national encryption solution. The product is ready to engage all kinds of challenges with its dual-redundant automatic take-off and landing system.