Turkish UAV KIZILELMA marks global first in unmanned close-formation flying

Turkish defence company Baykar announced on Sunday that two prototypes of its Bayraktar KIZILELMA unmanned combat aircraft have successfully carried out the world’s first fully autonomous close-formation flight by jet-powered drones.

Turkish defence giant Baykar, manufacturer of KIZILELMA, is integrating new capabilities into its development process.

The test marked a major milestone in global aviation, as no other country has publicly demonstrated autonomous close-formation flying by unmanned fighter-class aircraft.

The flight was conducted as part of ongoing tests of KIZILELMA’s smart fleet autonomy capability at the AKINCI Flight Training and Test Center in Corlu, northwestern Türkiye.

During the test, the third prototype of Bayraktar KIZILELMA, PT3, and the fifth prototype, PT5, took off consecutively.

Once airborne, the two unmanned combat aircraft executed synchronised manoeuvres and maintained close formation entirely autonomously, without any human intervention. The operation was made possible through smart fleet autonomy algorithms developed by Baykar’s engineering team.

With this achievement, KIZILELMA became the first unmanned combat aircraft system in the world to demonstrate autonomous close-formation flight, a task traditionally performed only by manned fighter jets.

This capability enables multiple unmanned platforms, under the command of a leader, to autonomously adjust their relative positions and carry out joint missions.

Combat air patrol mission

During the flight test, the Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission, one of the fundamental elements of modern air combat, was also tested.

KIZILELMA prototypes conducted patrol flights along a designated route accompanied by fleet autonomy software. Therefore, the feasibility of conducting air defence missions by a national unmanned combat aircraft operating as a fleet was verified.

Patrol and interception missions carried out by fighter aircraft to protect specific regions may, in the future, be performed autonomously by KIZILELMA fleets.

Throughout the test process, the autonomous systems of the unmanned combat aircraft and their cooperative operational procedures were closely monitored.

Developed entirely with Baykar’s own resources, KIZILELMA will continue to advance its capability to conduct coordinated operations with multiple platforms in the future, thanks to its smart fleet autonomy infrastructure.

The fighter jet has already made history in world aviation during a test conducted on November 29.

In that historic test, conducted off the coast of Sinop in Türkiye's northern province, it achieved a direct hit with the GOKDOGAN missile developed by TUBITAK SAGE, identifying the target aircraft with the ASELSAN-developed MURAD AESA radar.

This success made the world’s first unmanned combat aircraft destroy a jet-powered aerial target using a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile.

‘World’s First’

Baykar, the largest company in the global unmanned aerial vehicle export market, has signed export agreements with 37 countries, including 36 for the Bayraktar TB2 and 16 for the Bayraktar Akinci UAVs.

In a post on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal regarding the test, Baykar Chair Selcuk Bayraktar said, "World's first!"

"Two Unmanned Fighter Aircraft have successfully performed autonomous close-formation flight."

The firm's General Manager, Haluk Bayraktar, also marked the development, saying: "Not copying, but inventing; not imitating, but being followed…”