ROME — Turkish UAV champion Baykar announced a deal with Italy’s Leonardo on Thursday to grab a slice of Europe’s $100 billion ($108 billion) drone market and possibly offer a Turkish drone as candidate to be the GCAP fighter’s ‘Loyal Wingman.’
Using Baykar platforms and Leonardo electronics and radars, a planned 50-50 joint venture envisages drone assembly in Turkey but also at Leonardo facilities in Italy, which would ease certification for selling in a European market worth $100 billion in the next ten years, the firms said.
“Europe has a gap in unmanned technologies and in a complicated time like this, drones are fundamental to guarantee security,” said Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani, adding the joint venture was the result of “five very intense months of work.”
The first prototype produced by the Italy-based firm will be a version of Baykar’s Akinci drone which will be ready in a year, said Cingolani.
“It has 1.5 tonnes of payload, which means it can carry any munition a fighter can,” said Baykar chairman Selçuk Bayraktar at a press conference held with Cingolani in Rome to announced the deal.
Leonardo, which produces the Gabbiano electronically scanned radar for drones, has already placed its systems on Baykar drones, but Bayraktar said the JV would represent a “deep dive” into further collaboration.
He said his firm’s Kizilelma unmanned fighter could yet be a candidate to fulfill the ‘Loyal Wingman’ role for the Anglo-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Programme fighter being built by Leonardo, BAE and Japan’s JAIEC.
“That was an idea that came up in discussions,” said Bayraktar.
The sixth-generation fighter is expected to control drones flying alongside it.
Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani said the team-up with Baykar was an “opportunity” to study the potential of making a Turkish drone the GCAP fighter’s backup.
So far, the GCAP partners have yet to focus on drone development.
But Cingolani warned it was early days to be pitching a Baykar platform.
“You need to know the requirement. We still have no idea if the drones will be under the wings or taking off from a carrier or an airport. It’s a bit too early,” he said.
Should the joint venture expand assembly of Baykar drones to Italy it could use Leonardo facilities as well as Piaggio Aerospace, the Italian aerospace company that Baykar purchased in December.
“One option is Piaggio,” said Bayraktar, adding that his firm would also keep up the civil, manned aircraft work at Piaggio.
Thursday’s press conference marked the signing of a memorandum of understanding ahead of the completion of the JV in about six months, officials said.
“If you start discussions with lawyers you don’t get anywhere, but if you start discussions with people who really want to do things together and they have a technical vision, then things happen and happen very quickly,” said Cingolani.
Cingolani said Baykar’s facility in Turkey was “the most striking high tech industry I have seen in my life, not only for its impressive drone capabiliity but also the campus with kindergarten, sports centre and flats for workers.”
Providing sensors and software would be key to Leonardo’s input, as well as getting drones certified, he said.
He cited three examples of where synergies would pay off: Creating swarms of UAVs that can fly by navigating thanks to ground features – without GPS; allowing drones like the Baykar Akinci to lead swarms of smaller drones; and building drones that can fly alongside sixth-generation fighters.
Bayraktar said of Leonardo,”They have an immense AI backbone.”
Cingolani claimed the tie-up would not clash with the Eurodrone program to build a European medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV in which Leonardo is a partner.
But he cautioned: “Eurodrone will not be able to guarantee the drone competitiveness of the continent.” Europe, he added, “has lost quite a lot of time.”
He said he “hoped” the Italian military would be a customer, while Baykar CEO Haluk Bayraktar told Defense News that possible Italian purchases included the Baykar Akinci and TB3 drones as well as loitering munitions and deep strike drones.
Asked whether European export restrictions might curtail the number of countries that jointly produced drones could be sold to, Cingolani said the company would adhere to any such rules.
“If I build a 25 million euro aircraft and cannot export it because of a 10,000 euro component from a country in the supply chain that stops me selling, we follow the rules, even if it is expensive. And that will apply to the new joint venture,” he said.
Italy has been a loyal purchaser of U.S. Predator and Reaper drones, so a purchase of Baykar platforms would mark a change in direction for Rome and reflect a possible, pending shift in Europe away from relying on U.S. armaments as President Trump aligns with Russia and imposes tariffs on the European Union.
If buying U.S. arms has been part of a deal to help maintain U.S. security guarantees in the past, there is less incentive to do so if the security guarantee is no longer a given.
Additionally, sovereignty over defense systems may become a priority in Europe amid concerns the U.S. could prevent American-made kit being used in operations opposed by Trump.
At the Rome press conference, Cingolani said Trump’s verbal “attacks” on Europe were fueling “an unprecedented sense of urgency” to beef up defense spending in Europe.
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo in Milan contributed to this report.
Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.
