The Chadian Air Force Revealed as the Latest Known Operator of TAI Aksungur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
The Chad National Army (ANT) procured an unknown number of Aksungur unmanned aerial vehicles from Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in order to build up its Air Force damaged by storms in 2017 and gain superiority over terrorist organizations operating in the country. This situation was revealed for the first time in a video shared by the Chadian Air Force (Armée de l’Air Tchadienne).
The AAT shared footage of a TAI Aksungur unmanned aerial vehicle with the serial number 23013, equipped with 8 MAM-L laser-guided Smart Mini Munitions produced by Roketsan, taking off from Adji Kossei Air Base in the capital N’Djamena and landing back on the runway after performing reconnaissance and intelligence missions against certain targets. The video also shows the efforts of Chadian Air Force personnel who were sent to Turkey to receive training at Turkish Aerospace Industries.
Aside from this limited information, the cost of the Chadian government’s contract with TAI, the number of Aksungur unmanned aerial vehicles covered, and the configuration of these vehicles are still unknown. As a result, it will be determined in the coming days whether the Aksungur seen in the AAT video covers the entire contract or if additional equipment batches will be delivered to the Chadian Air Force in the future.
What is known is that the Chadian Air Force will use TAI Aksungur unmanned aerial vehicles to combat Islamist-Salafi terrorist groups that regularly threaten the country’s territory in the Sahel region. The country had previously procured three HÜRKUŞ-C light attack aircraft and two ANKA unmanned aerial vehicles from Turkish Aerospace Industries for this same purpose.
Developed based on the TAI ANKA platform, AKSUNGUR is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) class UAV system that can perform Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions day and night with EO/IR, SAR, and SIGINT payloads. The system, which has been actively used by the Turkish Navy, Air Force and Special Operations (National Intelligence Organization or MİT) since 2021, has been exported to Kyrgyzstan and Angola, aside from Chad.
Aksungur has a length of 11.6 meters, a wingspan of 24 meters, a maximum takeoff weight of 3300 kilograms, and a cargo capacity of 750 kilograms. Thanks to two TEI PD-170 turbo diesel engines with three-bladed propellers, the drone has 340 horsepower and a top speed of 100 knots (180 km/h) at sea level. The drone can fly for 12 hours with 750kg of external payload during an Assault/Naval Patrol Mission, and 24 hours with 150kg of payload during a Signal Intelligence Mission. As a weapon system, Aksungur, which has 3 weapon stations with a capacity of 500kg, 300kg and 150kg on each wing, can be equipped with the TEBER-81 (Laser Guided Mk-81), TEBER-82 (Laser Guided Mk-82), L-UMTAS, MAM-L (LUMTAS Guided Missile Variant), Cirit MAM-C (Cirit Guided Missile Variant), HKG-3 (Precision Guidance Kit), KGK (82) Wing Guidance Kit and Miniature Bomb ammunition.