Baykar’s Akıncı UCAV took off with TÜBİTAK Defence Industries Research and Development Institute’s (SAGE) 2000 lb NEB. NEB is a Turkish abbreviation for Penetrator Bomb. The UCAV had 1000 libre extra weight on board besides the NEB.
Baykar’s Akıncı took off with a 6.049 kg take-off weight on July 9th and flew for 13 hours 24 minutes with 3000 libre (1.360 kg) payload and reached 30.000 feet (9.144 meters) altimeter.
Selcuk Bayraktar shared a picture of Akinci S-1 equipped with NEB bombs, Chief Technology Officer of drone maker Baykar, two weeks ago. It is easy to confuse NEB with MK-84 GPB. Both have similar external geometry, guidance unit interfaces, mass, a centre of gravity and inertia properties. It did not draw very much public interest, but TurDef has reported.
Baykar has three prototypes and one serial production Akıncı (S-1). S-1 took part in both high altitude-long endurance and 3000lb payload capacity campaign as part of design verification tests.Akıncı performed its test flight in Çorlu in front of the official delegation. Akıncı has, so far, 874 sorties in test and training flights to date.The NEB is the first concrete penetrator system developed in Turkey. It is designed to be used against the surface and underground targets. NEB contains Multiple War Head Systems (MWS) technology.
