Bayraktar TB2 Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

By Wiley Stickney

Published on

Bayraktar TB2 Drones, Image Credit: Forbes

Let’s talk about the Bayraktar TB2, a pretty cool piece of tech in the world of drones. Imagine a flying robot that can do all sorts of things – that’s basically what the TB2 is. It’s made by a company called Baykar, and they’ve packed a lot of neat stuff into one system. You’ve got the drone itself, plus all the gear on the ground to control it. The best part? They make everything themselves, right there in Turkey.

Over 750,000 Hours in the Sky

This isn’t just some toy drone – the TB2 is what we call a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone. It can fly high and stay up there for a long time. Its job? To keep an eye on things and, if needed, carry out missions. It’s so smart that it can take off, fly around, and land all by itself! These drones have been zipping around for over 750,000 hours, which is a lot of air time. They’re used by the military and police in Turkey, and other countries like Qatar, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan have them too. It’s even broken some records – one stayed in the air for over 27 hours!

The TB2 isn’t just about flying around, though. It can carry special weapons made in Turkey, and it’s really good at gathering information. It’s like a flying detective that can also defend itself if it needs to. What’s cool is that it’s designed to be precise, so if it does need to use its weapons, it tries really hard not to hurt anyone or anything it’s not supposed to.

Real-Time Video and Backup System

Now, here’s where it gets really interesting. The TB2 can send back live video of what it sees, and there’s a special system called BGAM that lets people on the ground watch this video in real-time. It’s kind of like a super-secure YouTube livestream. Lots of people can watch at once, and they can even add notes to the video as it’s playing.

The system saves all the video too, cutting it into 30-minute chunks. This makes it easy to find stuff later. You can search through the videos using tags, almost like how you’d search for a video on social media. And don’t worry – it’s all super secure. The system uses special passwords that change all the time to make sure only the right people can see the videos.

Flying High and Far

The TB2 can do some pretty impressive things in the air. It can fly up to 18,000 feet high during normal missions, but it can go even higher if it needs to – up to 27,000 feet! And remember how I said it could stay in the air for a long time? We’re talking up to 27 hours. That’s longer than a whole day!

It’s also really smart. It has three separate autopilot systems, so if one fails, the others can take over. It can find its way around even if it loses its GPS signal, and it can take off and land all by itself. Pretty neat, right?

Extra Cool Features

The TB2 has some other tricks up its sleeve too. It can follow a pre-planned route all by itself, and it even has automatic parking – kind of like some fancy cars! If the pilot wants to take more control, there’s a semi-automatic mode too. It’s got special batteries and backup systems to make sure it keeps working even if something goes wrong.

Bayraktar TB2 Tech Specs

Now, let’s look at some numbers. The TB2 can fly between 70 and 120 knots (that’s pretty fast for a drone), and it can carry up to 150 kg of stuff. It uses regular gasoline for fuel and can carry four laser-guided weapons. It’s pretty big too – its wings stretch out 12 meters (that’s about as wide as a school bus is long), and it’s 6.5 meters from nose to tail. The engine is like a souped-up car engine, giving it 100 horsepower to zoom around the sky.