According to information published by the X account of Breaking Defense correspondent Agnes Helou on August 30, 2025, Türkiye will begin shipboard operations of the Bayraktar TB3 unmanned combat aerial vehicle on the amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu in September 2025. Rear Admiral Recep Erdinc Yetkin confirmed the commissioning timeline during Teknofest Mavi Vatan alongside Baykar Chairman Selçuk Bayraktar. This marks the first time a fixed wing strike-capable UCAV is slated for routine missions from a large deck ship in any navy.
The announcement follows multiple at-sea trials and sets a near-term operational bar that few fleets have matched with comparable platforms. As Anadolu evolves into a drone carrier, the Turkish Navy is pivoting from experimental flights to real shipboard tasking. That shift creates a new yardstick for naval aviation in the unmanned era.
The Bayraktar TB3 is a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicle developed by THE Turkish company Baykar, specifically designed for shipborne use. Unlike the combat-proven TB2, the TB3 features folding wings to fit inside limited hangar space aboard carriers and amphibious assault ships. It has a maximum takeoff weight of around 1,450 kilograms, a payload capacity of 280 kilograms, and endurance exceeding 24 hours. The UCAV can employ a range of precision-guided weapons including Roketsan’s MAM-L and MAM-T smart munitions, allowing it to conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike missions far from the Turkish coastline. The integration of satellite communications and AI-supported avionics makes the TB3 a leap forward in autonomous naval aviation.
TCG Anadolu (L-400) is the Turkish Navy’s flagship and the largest warship ever built for Türkiye. Based on the Spanish Juan Carlos I-class design, it was originally intended as a landing helicopter dock capable of supporting F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft. After Türkiye’s removal from the Joint Strike Fighter program, the ship was reconfigured into the world’s first dedicated drone carrier. Displacing 27,000 tons and measuring 232 meters in length, Anadolu combines amphibious assault capabilities with an aviation wing optimized for unmanned aircraft. It can deploy helicopters, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, amphibious landing craft, and armored vehicles, enabling Türkiye to project force both ashore and at sea.
In November 2024, Bayraktar TB3 UCAV made aviation history as the first unmanned aerial vehicle to take off and land on a short-deck vessel. During its second flight test aboard TCG Anadolu, cruising off the coast of Çanakkale, the drone performed two successful takeoffs and landings without using any landing support equipment. The indigenously developed UCAV executed all test parameters while flying at an average altitude of 20,000 feet, proving its ability to operate under real maritime conditions and laying the foundation for its future operational role.
Türkiye’s edge rests on demonstrated, repeatable deck operations and an industrial cadence tailored to shipboard drones. In April 2025 Baykar completed four fully autonomous sorties from Anadolu during short-runway vessel tests in the Gulf of Saros, validating ski-jump launches and unassisted recoveries while proving the TB3’s folding-wing configuration for hangar density. Subsequent events during the Denizkurdu series and follow-on campaigns built flight hours and refined vision-based landing logic. With Anadolu commissioned in 2023 and optimized for unmanned air wings, Ankara now fields a credible blueprint for sea based MALE-class strike and ISR using indigenous datalinks and munitions, compressing the gap between trial and fleet use.
Crucially, the TB3 is not a one-off. It sits inside a broader Turkish playbook that layers unmanned surface and subsurface systems into fleet missions. The ULAQ family of armed USVs, trialed with live Cirit and L-UMTAS missile firings and steadily industrialized through 2024–2025, signals a parallel investment in distributed, attritable naval combat power. This multi-domain approach lets Ankara experiment with human-machine teaming from the littorals outward, pairing TB3 maritime ISR and precision strike with USV scouting, sea denial, and coastal fires. The combined effect is a doctrine that treats drones as standing elements of task groups rather than occasional add-ons.
The United States retains unmatched carrier experience and has already proven the hardest pieces of unmanned deck aviation, but its near-term operational focus differs. A decade ago the X-47B executed catapult launches and the first arrested landings by an unmanned jet aboard U.S. carriers, proving autonomous recovery and flight deck choreography at sea. The Navy’s first fielded carrier-based unmanned aircraft, however, will be the MQ-25 Stingray tanker, prioritized to extend strike fighter range and free F/A-18s from buddy-tanking. Naval Air Forces leaders reiterate that MQ-25 will fly in 2025 and begin carrier integration in 2026 as carriers are outfitted with control stations and plumbing, making it the trailblazer for routine unmanned deck operations in the U.S. fleet even if it is not a strike UCAV.
The Royal Navy is advancing on two tracks that underscore experimentation on the big decks and rapid fielding of tactical rotary UAS at sea. In November 2023 the carrier HMS Prince of Wales launched and recovered GA-ASI’s Mojave STOL drone in a first-of-kind demo that showed fixed wing UAS can operate from a ski-jump carrier without catapults. In parallel, the Peregrine program is introducing the Schiebel S-100 Camcopter as an operational ISR asset for escorts, while the service studies larger fixed wing concepts under the Future Maritime Aviation Force including Project Vixen. The RN has not yet committed to adding catapults or arresting gear to the Queen Elizabeth class in the near term, which frames a measured path toward heavier fixed wing drones compared with Türkiye’s TB3-from-Anadolu model.
China is moving in parallel with a different center of gravity. The PLA Navy’s third carrier Fujian is deep into sea trials with electromagnetic catapults, a prerequisite for routine fixed wing UAS and AEW operations, and open sources indicate growing flight deck activity as commissioning nears. In late 2024 Beijing also launched the large Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan, widely described by state and industry watchers as a catapult-equipped platform intended to embark fixed wing drones alongside helicopters. While the PLA Navy’s specific carrier-borne UAS mix remains opaque, the hardware points to an ambition to field drone-heavy air wings from both CATOBAR carriers and future amphibious aviation ships.
Taken together, these trajectories highlight three distinct approaches. Türkiye is first to operationalize a medium-altitude, armed, shipborne UCAV on a large deck amphibious carrier, trading catapults and arresting gear for endurance, payloads optimized for maritime land attack, and high sortie potential at lower cost. The United States is using MQ-25 to normalize unmanned deck procedures inside a mature carrier ecosystem, unlocking range and capacity before fielding future strike-capable UAS. The United Kingdom is pairing near term ISR from rotary UAS with bold carrier trials to de-risk fixed wing options while managing carrier modification costs. China is building the infrastructure for drone-centric aviation with EMALS carriers and a new amphibious class that analysts assess will prioritize fixed wing UAS.
In that landscape, Anadolu with TB3 gives Ankara an operational first mover advantage, compressing the time from deck trial to frontline missions and forcing a broader rethink of how navies generate maritime airpower with uncrewed systems. For the Turkish Navy, September 2025 will not only mark the operational debut of the TB3 but also its entry into a select group of forces redefining naval aviation in the 21st century.
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