Turkey Focuses on Unmanned Aircraft for Future Aircraft Carrier
The promising 300-meter aircraft carrier of the MUGEM project may be equipped with a fully unmanned aviation group featuring jet strike drones.
The corresponding equipment for the aircraft carrier model was presented at the IDEF 2025 defense exhibition.
The Turkish state defense company ASFAT, involved in the development of the MUGEM conceptual and technical project, presented a model with mostly unmanned deck aviation.
The model featured:
- Kizilelma unmanned fighter aircraft
- Anka-III attack drone
- Bayraktar TB3 reconnaissance and strike drone
- Hurjet training aircraft
Such an aviation group could provide maritime reconnaissance, strike missions against land and surface targets, and partially replace a full-fledged deck fighter in intercepting air targets thanks to the Kizilelma’s capabilities.
However, currently, only the specialized deck-mounted Bayraktar TB3 drone is ready to operate on the aircraft carrier. The promising Kizilelma aircraft and its deck version are still under development, while the Anka-III and Hurjet series aircraft are not designed for takeoffs and landings on deck.
Captain Hakan Uçar, Head of the Turkish Navy’s design office, announced earlier this year that negotiations with Turkish Aerospace Industries were ongoing to develop deck-based versions of the Anka-III, Hurjet, and KAAN single-seat fighter jet.
However, the adaptation of a heavy twin-engine fighter for carrier operations remains at least a medium-term prospect due to the need for a major redesign, which may not be realized at all due to the design of the ship itself – the current STOBAR configuration provides for a short takeoff from a springboard without the use of a catapult.
It is expected that the Turkish aircraft carrier may receive an alternative CATOBAR configuration used by US supercarriers if deck catapult technology becomes available in the next stages of development.
Turkey may finally abandon the transition to a different configuration. Two years after the start of the design project, major changes in the ship’s design were announced – its length increased from 285 to 300 meters.
This is significantly longer than the 261 meters of the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier with a displacement of approximately 42,000 tons, and even the 280 meters of the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers of the British Navy, with a displacement of approximately 65,000 tons.
With such a length, the future aircraft carrier that Turkey plans to develop together with Spain is approaching the size of American nuclear aircraft carriers, the largest of which is the USS Gerald R. Ford. Ford is 337 meters long and has a displacement of 100,000 tons.
In late June, the Spanish shipbuilding company Navantia launched a preliminary feasibility study on the creation of the first full-fledged aircraft carrier in the modern history of the Spanish Navy.
