Drone industry: BAE Systems and Turkish Aerospace explore strategic UAS alliance

BAE Systems and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) recently signed a memorandum of understanding, i.e. a declaration of intent. The aim is a strategic alliance in the drone industry: both sides want to examine the opportunities offered by jointly developing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

The tasks are divided: TAI contributes its experience as a developer and manufacturer of unmanned aircraft, while BAE Systems coordinates regional sales – in Europe as well as in other regions. The agreement covers not just a single type but TAI's entire product portfolio of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Voices from the drone industry

On behalf of BAE Systems, Dave Holmes, managing director of the BAE Systems FalconWorks division, commented in a brief press release: “We see this as the beginning of a deep and meaningful alliance between our two organisations, each of which brings complementary capabilities and expertise as well as a strong portfolio of unmanned systems that we can use and combine to develop a range of compelling and cost-effective solutions.”

TAI CEO Mehmet Demiroğlu added: “The agreement builds on the already strong relationship between the two companies and will allow us to take our proven capabilities in unmanned systems to a new level. Together, we want to explore how we can accelerate progress and new market opportunities in this field”.

The agreement comes at a time when Turkey is deepening its defence relations with Europe. This is evident, for example, in the recently signed purchase contract under which the country is procuring a total of 44 Eurofighter Typhoons: 20 aircraft are new, 24 refurbished, and the total value is 9.14 billion euros.