TUSAŞ said, “High-Speed Target Drone Şimşek continued to serve as a target drone in the Blue Homeland exercise.” Şimşek conducted a total of eight sorties during the exercise that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Aegean Seas. The company stated that “Şimşek has made a significant contribution to the air defence and close air defence firing of the ships in a realistic threat environment.”
ŞİMŞEK High-Speed Target Drone System program was initiated in 2009 to meet theincreased trainingrequirements of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF).
The system will meet the requirements of high-speed target drone simulating enemy aircraft and missiles for air to air, ground to air, anti-aircraft gunnery and missile systems’ tracking and firing training. The open architecture design of the ŞİMŞEK High-Speed Target Drone System allows modifications with respect toend-userrequirements.
ŞİMŞEK System, general features:
- 45minutes of endurance
- Max. Speed 400 kts
- Mission altitude between 1000ft (350m) to 15000 feet (4500 m) (ASL)
- 50 km LOS Data Link Range with GCS
- Catapult launch
- Parachute recovery on land or at sea
- Ability to take-off and control from Navy platforms
- Structure manufactured with advanced composite technology
- Compatible with military standards
- Full autonomous flight mode with Waypoint / Heading / Speed / Altitude hold modes including take-off and landing with indigenous "GCS Flight Control System" and "Autopilot System"
- Preprogrammed flight ability to assign waypoints and change during/before flight
- Return Home & Fail-Safe Modes for automatic recovery to a predefined return home point
- Record and playback of real-time coded digital flight data telemetry
- Ability to recognize and load digital maps
Payloads:
- Passive Radar Cross Section Augmenter - Luneberg Lens
Additional Payload Integration Activities:
- MDI
- Radar Altimeter
- CMDS
- Smoke Generator
