IN Brief:
- ANKA III has been shown airborne carrying two SÜPER ŞİMŞEK tactical unmanned aircraft.
- SÜPER ŞİMŞEK supports deception, electronic warfare, target-drone, and one-way strike configurations.
- The flight demonstrates twin carriage, while simultaneous release and coordinated mission control remain separate integration steps.
Turkish Aerospace has demonstrated ANKA III in flight carrying two SÜPER ŞİMŞEK tactical unmanned aircraft, moving a previously displayed twin-store configuration into airborne testing.
Imagery released on 14 August shows one SÜPER ŞİMŞEK mounted beneath each wing of the flying-wing ANKA III. Turkish Aerospace had already established that SÜPER ŞİMŞEK can be launched from ANKA III and other unmanned carriers, while earlier testing demonstrated an autonomous flight after release from ANKA III. The latest configuration adds evidence that the larger aircraft can carry two of the jet-powered vehicles simultaneously.
It does not establish that both have been released together or that ANKA III has demonstrated coordinated control of several deployed effectors during the same mission. Those are separate engineering steps involving safe separation, datalinks, mission management, software, and the behaviour of each unmanned aircraft after release.
SÜPER ŞİMŞEK has been developed as a modular tactical unmanned aircraft rather than a single-purpose missile. Turkish Aerospace lists a maximum speed of Mach 0.85, a service ceiling of 35,000ft, endurance of 80 minutes, a maximum take-off weight of 200kg, and payload capacity of 50kg. Line-of-sight datalink range is listed at 150km, with an operating range of 900km.
Its mission set includes air-defence deception and suppression, radar jamming, electronic warfare, target-drone duties, and strike. The aircraft can carry an integrated 35kg warhead for one-way missions, while radar-cross-section and infrared signature augmentation allow it to imitate more valuable airborne targets during deception or training activity.
Carriage by ANKA III changes how those capabilities can reach a mission area. An air-launched vehicle does not have to spend the same proportion of its fuel climbing and travelling from a ground launch point, allowing more of its endurance to be preserved for the task itself. The carrier can also move the effectors towards a release area before sending them on different routes or assigning different mission functions.
The arrangement comes with a physical penalty. External stores alter aerodynamic drag and the radar signature of an aircraft whose flying-wing geometry is intended to support low-observable operation. Turkish Aerospace has not published radar-cross-section figures for the twin-carriage configuration, and there is no basis for assuming that ANKA III retains its clean-airframe signature with two SÜPER ŞİMŞEK vehicles mounted below the wings.
That may be acceptable for some missions if the stores can be carried through the less contested part of a sortie and released before ANKA III approaches a more heavily defended area. Establishing such an operating envelope requires flight testing across speed, altitude, manoeuvre, and asymmetric load conditions rather than a single airborne demonstration.
Safe release brings another layer of qualification. Each unmanned aircraft has to separate cleanly without contacting the carrier, enter stable independent flight, establish or maintain communications, and transition into its programmed mission. Releasing two vehicles during one sortie also increases the demands on mission software and communications if the operator is expected to monitor, redirect, or coordinate them after separation.
Turkish Aerospace already describes SÜPER ŞİMŞEK as supporting autonomous flight, pre-flight and in-flight mission updates, and AI-supported swarm technologies. ANKA III is also being developed around a broader mission architecture that includes electronic intelligence, communications intelligence, electronic attack, satellite communications, autonomous functions, and the carriage of air-launched unmanned systems.
Those published capabilities create the technical basis for a distributed system, but demonstrated carriage should not be confused with a completed collaborative-combat capability. The useful milestones are now progressively harder: repeated twin-store flight, separation testing, simultaneous or sequential release, reliable communications, mission reassignment, and finally coordinated employment under operationally representative conditions.
The two aircraft occupy complementary parts of that architecture. ANKA III provides greater endurance, sensors, payload capacity, and the ability to carry systems forward, while SÜPER ŞİMŞEK provides a smaller and potentially expendable platform that can be configured around deception, electronic attack, or strike. One does not need to perform every task itself if the smaller aircraft can be released to create effects closer to a threat.
Industrial integration is as important as the operating concept. A carrier-and-effector system requires common mechanical interfaces, electrical power, communications, software standards, flight-test instrumentation, and configuration management. Changes to either aircraft can force renewed integration work, particularly when aerodynamic loads or software interfaces are affected.
The latest flight is therefore a measurable step rather than proof of a finished autonomous wingman system. ANKA III has now been shown carrying two SÜPER ŞİMŞEK aircraft in flight. The programme’s next useful evidence will come when those two stores stop being passengers and begin demonstrating the release, communications, and coordinated mission functions that justify carrying them in the first place.
