Bayraktar TB2 Flies With 16 Skydagger FPV Kamikaze Drones
Turkish drone maker Baykar said on November 4 that its Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aircraft carried out a test flight with Skydagger FPV kamikaze drones, releasing two of them against designated targets. The flight took off from the company’s Flight Training and Test Center in Keşan, in Turkey’s Edirne province, with 16 Skydagger units loaded onto the TB2.
According to Baykar’s statement, the TB2 itself did not control the two drones it released. Instead, ground-based operators flew each FPV drone individually through a data link relayed via the TB2, and both drones struck their assigned targets. That separation of roles is the point of the test: the TB2 acts as a carrier and communications relay, not as the platform making the terminal engagement decision, which lets a single sortie address several unrelated small targets instead of one.
Skydagger is the newest addition to Baykar’s expanding family of FPV and kamikaze drones. The company introduced the first member of that line, the Skydagger TOYCA-10E, in September with a stated range of 250 kilometers. The variant launched from the TB2 in this week’s test is understood to be shorter-ranged and comparatively low-cost, built for being carried and released rather than flown independently from the ground. Pairing a single larger aircraft with multiple cheap, disposable strike drones has become one of the most closely watched concepts in militaries’ drone programs over the past two years, largely because it trades one expensive sortie for several inexpensive ones.
Baykar tied the test to its export performance. The company says it closed 2025 with a record $2.2 billion in UAV exports and that roughly 90 percent of its revenue in recent years has come from sales abroad. It ranked among Türkiye’s top exporters across all sectors in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and says it now holds export agreements with 39 countries — 36 for the TB2 and 16 for the Akıncı — all funded from its own resources rather than state financing.
The test adds to a busy run of TB2-linked weapons integration this autumn. In October, Turkish state manufacturer MKE fired its PIRANA kamikaze unmanned surface vessel from the TOLGA rocket system aboard the guided missile ship TCG Beykoz, with the PIRANA then steered to its target under TB2 control; in the same exercise, Turkish defense firm STM’s TUNGA-X system shot down a mock hostile drone in a direct hit. Today’s Skydagger test extends that pattern, giving the TB2 another payload family it can carry and relay commands for, alongside ground, naval and aerial munitions already fielded on Baykar’s larger AKINCI and KIZILELMA platforms.
Baykar’s statement did not disclose the released drones’ range, altitude, flight time or link distance in Thursday’s test. The company said only that Skydagger’s development is ongoing and that TB2 integration is meant to strengthen the platform against “changing battlefield conditions.” It gave no timeline for offering the capability to existing TB2 export customers, whose aircraft typically receive new capabilities through software and ground-system updates rather than hardware changes made on site.
Sources
Baykar, “Bayraktar TB2 Hits Its Target with FPV Kamikaze Drones,” November 4, 2026 — baykartech.com (company statement, primary source).
