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Turkish drone giant Baykar CEO and SAHA Istanbul Chairman Haluk Bayraktar stated that Kizilelma has entered serial production and the company is targeting its first serial deliveries to the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) in 2026.
SAHA 2026 closed with $8 billion in export contracts, up from $6.3 billion at the 2024 edition, as Baykar Chairman Selcuk Bayraktar called for a "Technological Solidarity Alliance" among friendly nations to resist techno-capitalist global domination.
"Bayraktar Kizilelma made its first flight in December 2022. Since then, continuous flight tests have been carried out. We have now started serial production. We are targeting the first serial deliveries this year," Haluk Bayraktar told Anadolu at the SAHA 2026 Technology Desk.
He also confirmed that Kizilelma had achieved a historic air-to-air milestone by saying, "With the AESA radar developed by Aselsan and air-to-air missiles developed by TUBITAK SAGE, an air-to-air target was struck from an unmanned combat aircraft (UCA) for the first time in the world. Kizilelma was the first system to achieve this."
"It is currently the most advanced unmanned combat aircraft platform in its class," he Bayraktar noted.
Haluk Bayraktar said Baykar had deliberately delayed signing the Indonesia export contract to ensure the platform had cleared all test phases and initial domestic deliveries were underway.
"Indonesia had wanted to sign this contract for approximately 1 year. We were waiting for the product to go through all test phases and for first deliveries to be made in our country," he added.
"We have now signed the first 12-unit Kizilelma export contract. We are targeting first deliveries to begin in 2028," he said, adding that Baykar does not heavily market Kizilelma, but demand, particularly from Indonesia, had been intense.
On motor technology, Haluk Bayraktar confirmed a significant threshold: "In the early years we were procuring the TB2 engine from abroad. Now we are producing that engine domestically. We are establishing the serial production line. We will produce thousands per year. We tested and qualified our engine."
He also confirmed that turbofan engine development was advancing both through TEI and through Baykar's own internal resources. "There is still a road to travel but we know we can do it. We now have that self-confidence," he said.
On loitering munitions, K2, Mizrak and Sivrisinek, he said Baykar produces all motors for the systems itself from the start.
"In loitering munitions, we are producing everything from the beginning. If you want to produce at high volumes, you have to make everything yourself," he said.
A robotic assembly line deal with Italy's Gruppo Esea at SAHA 2026 was designed specifically to bring higher-volume, standardized production to this category.
Haluk Bayraktar said SAHA 2026 generated $8 billion in export contracts compared to $6.3 billion at SAHA 2024, with 196 signing ceremonies completed during the fair.
He singled out ARCA, which accounted for $4.3 billion of the $8 billion, and Baykar's first Kizilelma export contract as the historic highlights.
He noted that the fair, now covering 100,000 square meters versus 10,000 at its first edition, had 120,000 visitors as of the last day, from over 120 countries, with strong ministerial-level delegations from Europe and Canada.
"From the east, from the Middle East, from Turkic republics, but also from Europe, we are seeing many delegations. There is very strong demand for increasing Turkey's defense cooperation with NATO countries," he said.
"Looking at the geography from China westward, the deepest, most powerful defense ecosystem is now established in Türkiye," Bayraktar noted.
Haluk Bayraktar recounted how Skydagger, Baykar's FPV drone company, began as a gifted add-on to TB2 customers and grew into an export operation covering 17 countries in two years.
He said the AI-powered systems could now find their own position using cameras when GPS was unavailable or jammed, and operate in autonomous swarm mode.
Skydagger's Avci (Hunter) drone interceptor has completed successful testing and entered serial production.
Haluk Bayraktar said all profits from SAHA 2026 would be used to establish drone production and education centers across all 81 provinces, and announced the addition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) to the program after speaking with its Foreign Minister.
He also said Baykar planned to build a large public drone park in Istanbul, open to young people and children, where anyone could build, test and race their own drones.
In a vision speech at SAHA 2026, Baykar Chairman Selcuk Bayraktar warned that the greatest threat to independence was no longer conventional armies massed at borders but "techno-capitalist global domination infiltrating our supply chains, data centers and the devices in our pockets."
He described social media algorithms as engineered to exploit neurological vulnerabilities and said civilian technology products had "been fully converted into weapons."
"The smartphones, watches and communications networks we have purchased have imprisoned humanity in a spider's web," he said.
He called for a "Technological Solidarity Alliance" sharing advanced technology with friendly, brotherly and oppressed peoples, developing open-source, transparent and auditable software and hardware ecosystems, and using federated learning architectures to keep data within national borders.
"If we unite our strength, we can tear apart the spider's web built by these monopolies. This union must not be a paper alliance, it must be a profound revolution of mindset," he said.
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