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Turkish drone giant Baykar’s Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) struck designated targets with pinpoint accuracy using two air-launched first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones developed by Skydagger, in a test flight in northwestern Türkiye’s Edirne province on Wednesday.
The TB2 took off from the Kesan Flight Training and Test Center carrying 16 Skydagger FPV kamikaze drones and flew to the test area, where it released two of them.
Through a connection established via the TB2, the drones, controlled by operators independent of the ground, hit the designated targets with pinpoint accuracy.
Baykar said the TB2, developed indigenously, continues to be reinforced with new capabilities tailored to the changing conditions of the battlefield.
Baykar Chief Technology Officer Selcuk Bayraktar shared new footage of the test, showing the TB2 carrying 16 FPV drones, eight under each wing.
The end of the video showed the released drones striking their targets.
Carrying FPV drones on larger unmanned aircraft and releasing them near a target area has become a prominent concept, especially in the Russia-Ukraine war.
In this approach, known in aviation as a "mothership," a larger drone acts as a carrier platform delivering smaller FPV drones to mission areas. Both fixed-wing platforms and vertical takeoff and landing platforms are known to be used.
The main goal is to overcome the limited range of small FPV drones and allow them to operate at longer distances by bringing them closer to targets instead of flying them directly from launch points. Mothership drones are also known to act as relays, maintaining the communication link between FPV drones and operators at longer distances, especially where terrain, distance and signal loss make control difficult.
Baykar, which has funded all its projects from its own resources, remained the world’s largest exporter in the unmanned aerial vehicle segment in 2025, setting a company record with $2.2 billion in exports, the company said.
It has led the global armed drone market over the past three years and earned 90% of its revenue from exports in recent years.
Baykar ranked among Türkiye’s top 10 exporters across all sectors in 2023, 2024 and 2025, received the Champions of Exports Award, and was the defense and aerospace sector’s export leader in 2021 through 2024, according to SSB and Turkish Exporters Assembly data.
It accounted for one-third of the sector’s exports in 2023 and one-quarter in 2024.
Baykar has signed export agreements with 39 countries in total, 36 for the Bayraktar TB2 and 16 so far for the Akinci.
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