Developed for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the domestic PD170 engine is counting days to be mounted on ANKA. According to the information obtained by C4Defence, the development work on the engine has been completed. ANKA's flying conditions were applied to the engine and the previously targeted performance data was reached.

The project, signed between the Undersecretariat of Defence Industries (SSM) and TEI on 27 December 2012, covered the development of a turbodiesel aviation engine with superior technical features for use in MALE class unmanned aerial vehicles through domestic sources.

In the frame of the project, the engine was developed first; then the atmospheric conditions were created in which ANKA would be flying and the engine was tested. According to the experiments, the 2,1-litre diesel engine produced 170 horsepower between 0 and 20 thousand feet (about 6 thousand 600 meters) at 2300 cycles. The altitude in which the engine's power began to fall as the amount of oxygen decreased was measured as 20 thousand feet as expected. The engine produced 130 horsepower at an altitude of 30,000 feet. At present, the current engine used on ANKA produces 155 horsepower between 0 and 11 thousand feet altitude. With this comparison, the critical altitude for the TEI's engine is twice as high compared to the current engine. At an altitude of 30,000 feet, it consumes 10-11 percent less fuel than the current engine while producing power twice as high. The TEI's engine is 5 kg heavier than the current engine, but the weight-power ratio also improves as it provides more power for this weight with flight performance. While the current engine rises to an altitude of 30 thousand feet with difficulty, the developed engine is not limited to 30 thousand feet and even easily flies at 40 thousand feet altitude. In this case, ANKA will have an engine that can reach 40 thousand feet altitude (about 13 thousand 300 meters).

The engine development work has been completed but the maturity tests are ongoing. The engine will be delivered to Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) at a ceremony attended by the Turkish Minister of National Defence, Nurettin Canikli. Afterwards, the integration of the engine onto the ANKA platform will begin. The vehicle integration will have been tested well enough by the time integration phase begins. The engine qualification and civil certification are expected to be completed by 2018.

Under the project, Turkey will receive EASA CS-E based Flying Qualification and EASA Part 21 based Design Organization Qualification Approval for the first time.