Turkey shows off drone at Azerbaijan Air Show

Baku: Looping through the air at lightning speed, Turkish drones like those used against Russian forces in Ukraine cheer from the crowd at an air show in Azerbaijan.
Turkey is showcasing its defense technology at the “Technofest” aerospace and technology festival that began in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku this week.
Turkey’s TB2 drone is manufactured by aerospace company Baykar Defense, where Selçuk Beraktar, the chief technology officer of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s principal son-in-law, is the chief technology officer.
On Wednesday, Bayraktar took off over Baku in a Mikoyan MiG-29 aircraft of the Azerbaijan Air Force. He had a combat drone, the “Akinsi”, with flight.
A video showing Beraktar in command of a warplane wearing a pilot’s uniform adorned with patches of Turkish and Azerbaijani flags went viral on social media.
“It’s been a childhood dream for me,” Byrakar told reporters after the flight.
Turkish drones first gained attention in 2019 when they were used during the war in Libya to thwart an advance by rebel commander General Khalifa Haftar against the government in Tripoli.
They were put into action again the following year when Turkish-backed Azerbaijan captured most of the land lost to separatist Armenian forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Members of the Azerbaijani audience applaud during a demonstration of the TB2 drone at the Aviation Festival, which are now playing a major role against invading Russian forces in Ukraine.
A senior official in the Turkish defense industry said his country faces a broad spectrum of “threats”, including those from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Daesh.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies.
But with NATO allies – including the US – imposing sanctions on Turkey, Ankara was forced to take matters into its own hands to manufacture defense equipment, the official said. “The situation is changing now with the war in Ukraine,” the official said.
Turkey is looking to modernize its air force after being pulled out of the F-35 fighter jet program because of Russia’s purchase of the S-400 missile defense system.
But Ankara’s role in trying to end the Ukraine conflict through direct talks may have helped improve its ties with Washington over the past months.
In April, US President Joe Biden’s administration said it now believed supplying F-16 fighter jets to Turkey would serve Washington’s strategic interests.
Michael Boyle of Rutgers University-Camden in the US said Turkish drones such as the Bayraktar TB2 were “increasingly important to modern conflicts because they have spread so widely.”