Turkey Debuts New Kamikaze Drone in Military Drill

Turkey’s new Kargi kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Lentatek company took part in EFES-2022 drills, marking its first participation in such an event.

The EFES-2022 field exercise is being held at Seferihisar district of western Izmir with the participation of friendly and allied countries.

The Kargı project was initiated by Lentatek with the support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), Daily Sabah reported today.

Serial production of the UAV is expected to begin soon.

Kargı can suppress and destroy the radars of the enemy's integrated air defense and surface-to-air weapon systems. The ground systems, navigation and automatic flight control system design and production were all developed domestically, as was the system's software.

In 2018, Kargı made its maiden flight with Lentatek's nationally developed aircraft and ground systems as a result of the localization of foreign components, which also applied to the RF seeker and destruction system, the flight engine and launch engine (rocket engine), link system, propeller and fuel tank subsystems, which were all developed within the country as well.

The Kargı project is being carried out under the leadership of Lentatek in cooperation with other leading defense industry companies, namely Aselsan, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) and TÜBITAK’s Defense Industries Research and Development Institute (SAGE).

It bears the PG50 engine developed by TAI’s engine producing subsidiary TUSAŞ Engine Industries (TEI).

The aircraft is launched from canisters, which are also used as storage, thanks to the rocket engine. The Kargı forces the air defense radars to remain passive by navigating the enemy airspace for a long time and will be able to find its target and successfully destroy it with the RF seeker and destruction system.

The kamikaze UAV is expected to replace the Israeli-made Harpy already in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)’s inventory.

HARPY is an all-weather day/night "Fire and Forget" autonomous weapon developed by Aerospace Industries (IAI). It is launched from a ground vehicle behind the battle zone. Programmed before launch to perform autonomous flight to a pre-defined “Loitering Area”, in which they loiter and search for radiating targets. The HARPY loitering munition (LM) detects, attacks and destroys enemy radar emitters, hitting them with high hit accuracy. HARPY effectively suppresses hostile SAM and radar sites for long durations, loitering above enemy territory for hours.

The launching process is controlled from the GCS and the HARPY LM is stored, transported, deployed and launched from a canister mounted on a ground-based launcher normally mounted on trucks.

The Harpy has been sold to several countries, including South Korea, Turkey, India and China.