Turkish long-endurance drone tests anti-submarine task at sea

Turkish Aerospace’s Aksungur long-endurance drone has completed its mission with Aselsan’s aselBUOY 100P underwater acoustic listening system during the Turkish Naval Forces’ TURNAs-2026 unmanned maritime systems exercise, the company announced on X on Oct. 24, adding a new capability to the drone’s set of maritime missions.

“With this integration, which offers an important capability for collecting underwater acoustic data and supporting anti-submarine warfare missions, AKSUNGUR takes its multi-role mission capabilities in naval operations one step further,” Turkish Aerospace said.

Sonobuoys are small expendable listening devices that are dropped into the sea, pick up underwater sounds such as a submarine’s engine or propeller noise, and radio that data back to an aircraft or ship, a job long handled by crewed maritime patrol aircraft. Pairing them with a drone that can stay airborne for days lets a navy keep watch over wide areas of sea with an unmanned platform.

TURNAs-2026 began this week in the Gulf of Antalya and the eastern Mediterranean, Anadolu Agency reported, citing Türkiye’s Ministry of National Defense. The drill brings together 18 ships, 11 aircraft, nine unmanned aerial vehicles, seven unmanned underwater vehicles and nine unmanned surface vessels, along with 41 systems from 17 Turkish defense companies, and involves frigates, corvettes, a submarine, a mine hunter, a maritime patrol aircraft and SH-70 helicopters.

The aselBUOY 100P is a NATO A-size passive directional sonobuoy that weighs 10 kg (22 pounds), listens at depths of either 30 m (98 feet) or 150 m (492 feet), and can transmit data over a range of up to 20 km (12 miles) before scuttling itself at the end of its programmed operating time of up to eight hours. Aselsan began developing the sonobuoy as a self-financed project in late 2015 and conducted its first air-launch tests from a Cessna turboprop in 2018.

Aselsan CEO Ahmet Akyol told Naval News at the World Defense Show in Riyadh in February that the system had entered serial production after the company signed its first production contract with the Turkish Naval Forces Command, and that Aselsan would integrate its own launching pods on Turkish drones to deploy the sonobuoys. Akyol also said Aselsan was setting up an artificial intelligence center with the Turkish Naval Forces to train detection models on underwater acoustic data.

The Aksungur, built by Turkish Aerospace, also known by its Turkish acronym TUSAŞ, is a twin-engine medium-altitude, long-endurance drone with a 24 m (79-foot) wingspan, a payload capacity of more than 750 kg (1,650 pounds) and a ceiling of 40,000 feet (12,200 m). The company says it can stay airborne for more than 50 hours and is working toward roughly 60 hours of endurance and a 1,250 kg payload.

The Turkish Naval Forces received their first Aksungur in October 2021, and Turkish Aerospace has displayed the drone fitted with sonobuoy pods at defense shows since then. At NAVDEX 2023 in Abu Dhabi, company officials outlined a three-phase plan in which the drone would relay sonobuoy data to a ground station, process that data on board, and launch its own sonobuoys while sharing the results with other naval units, alongside work to arm the drone with a torpedo.

“With our national technologies, we are adding strength to our power at sea as well,” Turkish Aerospace said.