Anka-3

Turkey's jet-powered flying-wing UCAV, built by Turkish Aerospace Industries for low-observable strike, reconnaissance and future manned-unmanned teaming with the Kaan fighter.

Overview

The Anka-3, also styled ANKA III, is a Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI/TUSAS) unmanned combat aerial vehicle in the prototype flight-test stage. It is a tailless, jet-powered flying wing intended to combine reduced radar signature, internal weapons carriage, strike payloads, intelligence-collection sensors and eventual loyal-wingman operation alongside Turkey's Kaan crewed fighter. The program sits within Turkey's broader effort to move from propeller-driven armed UAVs into high-subsonic and eventually networked combat-air systems, alongside Baykar's Kizilelma.

As of the most recent public reporting, Anka-3 is not in service and has no confirmed combat employment. TAI's leadership said the production configuration had been frozen after critical design review and that a Turkish Air Force order for more than 50 aircraft was expected in 2026, but no signed contract value or delivery schedule has been publicly confirmed by the sources reviewed by Turkiye Today.

Development

TAI revealed the Anka-3 publicly in the 2022-2023 period, with taxi and runway testing beginning in April 2023 and first flight taking place on 28 December 2023 from Ankara. The first flight lasted about one hour and ten minutes and included autonomous flight and landing, according to the program timeline summarized by Wikipedia and later industry reporting by Turkiye Today.

The prototype campaign moved through conventional envelope-expansion and weapons-integration milestones during 2024 and 2025. Publicly reported events include the first in-flight landing-gear retraction in August 2024, a precision-strike test with Roketsan's Teber-82 guidance kit in September 2024, and an internal-bay release of a Tolun guided glide bomb in January 2025. TAI's CEO Mehmet Demiroglu later said critical design review had been completed around late 2025 and that production work had started, with two further prototypes of the finalized design planned during 2026, according to Turkiye Today.

Development has not been mishap-free. On 25 June 2025, an Anka-3 prototype crashed during a test flight near Konya, reportedly around the Anatolian Eagle 2025 exercise. Turkey's Ministry of National Defense described the event as a "controlled landing"; Militarnyi reported that the fuselage remained largely intact while the wing sustained significant damage, and that loss of communication was a possible cause, with engine malfunction not ruled out in public reporting.

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