A machine shop for car parts

In 1984 an Istanbul engineer called Özdemir Bayraktar, a specialist in internal combustion engines, set up a small company to make precision-machined parts for Turkey’s import-dependent car industry: engine components, pumps, spares. He named it Baykar, short for Bayraktar Kardeşler, the Bayraktar Brothers. For twenty years it was a CNC subcontractor, and from the 1990s it also did work for the Turkish military. Nothing about it suggested that it would one day sell combat aircraft to more than 30 countries, or that the family’s name, which means standard-bearer, would end up in the chorus of a Ukrainian wartime song.

The thesis that changed the business

The turn came through a son. Selçuk Bayraktar, born in 1979, studied electrical engineering in Istanbul and went on to the University of Pennsylvania and then MIT, where his 2006 master’s thesis was titled Aggressive Landing Maneuvers for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In 2004, while helping with that research, his father decided to point the machine shop at drones. Selçuk cut his doctorate short and came home in 2007, the year the hand-launched Bayraktar Mini UAV entered Turkish service, the first unmanned system built entirely with Turkish capital. His elder brother Haluk, an industrial engineer, became chief executive.

Built because America said no

The breakthrough aircraft owed something to Washington. The United States refused to sell armed drones to Turkey, wary they would be used against Kurdish militants, so Ankara turned to its own industry. Baykar’s TB1 prototype, delivered in 2011, led to the TB2, which first flew in August 2014 and fired a Roketsan smart munition in December 2015. It was cheap by Western standards, with Ukrainian crowdfunding campaigns later putting a unit at around 5 million dollars, roughly a sixth of an MQ-9 Reaper. It also leaned on imported parts, from Austrian Rotax engines to Canadian sensors, until suppliers cut Baykar off in 2020 and Turkish replacements were found.

Karabakh, Kyiv and a pop song

The TB2 became famous in other people’s wars. In autumn 2020 Azerbaijan used it to devastating effect against Armenian armour and artillery in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Özdemir Bayraktar received the Karabakh Order from President Aliyev. Ukraine had bought its first TB2s in 2019, and in the first months of the 2022 invasion they struck Russian convoys and patrol boats near Snake Island. A song called Bayraktar became a hit. When Lithuanians crowdfunded a drone for Ukraine, Baykar donated one free and asked that the money go to humanitarian aid. Özdemir did not see most of it: he died in October 2021, aged 72.

From TB2 to a jet fighter with no pilot

Baykar kept climbing, literally. The twin-turboprop Akıncı first flew in December 2019, entered service in 2021 and in June 2022 reached 45,118 feet in a test the company announced as a record. The TB3, with folding wings, flew in October 2023 and in November 2024 took off from and landed back on the short deck of the assault ship TCG Anadolu. Most ambitious of all is the Kızılelma, a jet-powered unmanned fighter that first flew on 14 December 2022. In late 2025 Baykar said it had fired a Gökdoğan air-to-air missile using its own radar, and flown two of them in autonomous close formation.

Buying Piaggio

The money followed. Baykar reported about 2 billion dollars of turnover in 2023, and 2.5 billion in 2025, with 2.2 billion of that from exports; it says the TB2 has gone to 36 countries and the Akıncı to 16. In February 2024 it began building a factory near Kyiv. Then, on 27 December 2024, the family bought Piaggio Aerospace out of Italian receivership, so the company that once built Italy’s only four-engine bomber now belongs to a drone maker. In March 2025 Baykar agreed a drone joint venture with Leonardo. Selçuk, who is married to Sümeyye Erdoğan, the president’s daughter, is now board chairman as well as technology chief.

Factories

• Headquarters and main plant · Istanbul — Design, production and the company’s head office
• Akıncı Flight Training and Test Center · Çorlu, Tekirdağ — Flight test base for Akıncı and Kızılelma
• Ukraine plant · near Kyiv — Construction began in February 2024; planned investment about 95 million US dollars, about 120 drones a year and about 500 staff
• Piaggio Aerospace · Villanova d’Albenga, Liguria, Italy — Acquired 27 December 2024

People

• Özdemir Bayraktar · founder, chairman until 2021 — Mechanical engineer; founded Baykar Makina in 1984; designed the Akıncı; died 18 October 2021
• Haluk Bayraktar · CEO and general manager — Eldest son; industrial engineer
• Selçuk Bayraktar · CTO and chairman — Led TB2 design; MIT-trained; married Sümeyye Erdoğan in 2016

Records and firsts

• Akıncı B reached 45,118 ft on 21 June 2022 during a 20-hour test flight, a record claimed by Baykar
• TB3 took off from and landed on TCG Anadolu on 19 November 2024, a 46-minute flight; Baykar called it a world first, although a General Atomics Mojave had flown from HMS Prince of Wales earlier
• Kızılelma fired a Gökdoğan air-to-air missile at a target drone using its own radar on 30 November 2025, claimed as a first for an autonomous platform
• Two Kızılelmas flew an autonomous close formation on 17 December 2025, claimed as a world first
• TB2 fleet passed 1 million flight hours by December 2024