Kizilelma formation flight: two prototypes fly together autonomously for the first time

The Turkish Bayraktar Kizilelma unmanned combat aircraft is developing fast. Baykar recently reported the world's first BVR (Beyond Visual Range) kill of a jet combat aircraft by an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) with an air-to-air missile. Now comes the next milestone, a Kizilelma formation flight: during ongoing testing at the Akinci Flight Training and Test Center in Çorlu, two prototypes flew a coordinated mission in the same airspace for the first time.

PT3 and PT5, the third and fifth prototypes, took part. Both took off in turn and climbed together to mission altitude, then flew in coordinated formation. Control lay with an autonomous “Combat Pilot” based on Smart Fleet autonomy algorithms developed in-house by Baykar.

What the Kizilelma formation flight shows

According to the manufacturer, this was the world's first demonstration of two unmanned combat aircraft autonomously flying in close formation. Such manoeuvres had so far been reserved exclusively for manned combat aircraft.

This capability allows autonomous aircraft to carry out highly complex air operations independently. Several unmanned platforms position themselves autonomously relative to each other and fulfil joint missions, led by a single system. This would be a decisive step towards networked, unmanned next-generation air combat systems.