Suppressing an air defence system is one of the most expensive things an air force can do. It normally takes a dedicated aircraft, a specialised crew and a weapon that costs more than a house. Over Konya this month, ASELSAN did the first two-thirds of the job with a pair of Bayraktar TB2s.

Three pods, two airframes, one coordinated scenario, and an audience of foreign defence delegations watching a drone that first flew in 2014 detect a live radar, work out where it was, and jam it.

The Division of Labour

The configuration matters, because it tells you how ASELSAN thinks this should be done. One TB2 carried both ANTIDOT pods: the 2ES 100 for listening, the 2EA 200 for shouting. The second TB2 carried the FULMAR 200 radar pod. Neither aircraft had to do everything.

In the first phase, the ANTIDOT 2ES 100 detected a target radar while airborne and calculated its position. It handed those coordinates to the ANTIDOT 2EA 200, which carried out an electronic attack on the emitter. According to the reporting from Konya, the attack let the ANTIDOT-equipped TB2 continue towards the target without being detected.

In the second phase, the electronic support pod located a different emitter and passed its position to the FULMAR 200, which generated a high-resolution synthetic aperture radar image of the area to pin the target down precisely.

What Is Actually in the Pods

The ANTIDOT 2ES 100 is the sensor. It detects, identifies and digitally records the signals coming off air defence radars, determines the direction and location of the threat, and pushes everything the operator needs down to the ground control station in real time over the aircraft’s own communications band. No separate datalink.

The ANTIDOT 2EA 200 is the interesting one. It folds electronic support and electronic attack into a single pod that ASELSAN describes as compact, light and power-efficient enough to hang under an unmanned aircraft. It finds hostile air defence systems, measures the signal characteristics of both their search and their tracking radars in detail for threat identification, and then attacks them with pre-loaded electronic attack techniques. ASELSAN says it does this fully autonomously.

The FULMAR 200 is a lightweight AESA synthetic aperture radar in a pod, capable of both Spotlight and Stripmap imaging, day or night, in any weather. It can be carried under a wing or on the fuselage and is designed to work alongside electro-optical and infrared cameras rather than replace them.

What Was Missing

This was not a complete suppression of enemy air defences cycle, and it is worth being precise about that. ASELSAN’s full concept ends with an ASELFLIR-500 targeting pod designating the air defence site so a laser-guided weapon can finish it. That step was not demonstrated. The ASELFLIR-500 has flown before, on the larger Bayraktar TB3, including on a sortie launched from the Turkish Navy’s drone carrier TCG Anadolu.

So what Konya showed was find, fix and jam. Not kill.

There is also a discrepancy in the attendance figures worth noting. ASELSAN’s own statement refers to more than 15 international defence delegations. C4Defence reported delegations from 18 countries. Nobody has published a list.

Why This Is a Sales Pitch, and Why It Will Work

Nobody flies a demonstration in front of foreign delegations for the engineering data. This was a shop window, and the product on display is not really the pods. It is the idea that a country with a modest budget can buy a credible electronic-attack capability without buying a Growler.

The TB2 already sells on exactly that argument. It is cheap, it is combat-proven, and Baykar has put it into service in dozens of countries. Bolting a genuine autonomous electronic attack pod onto it moves the aircraft from a surveillance and strike platform to something that can open a door for other aircraft.

ASELSAN has not disclosed a customer, a price or a date. Given what was in the room, it may not have to advertise for long.

Sources: ASELSAN; C4Defence; Defence Blog; Defence Industry Europe.