The Croatian Air Force has officially inducted the Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) produced by Turkish company Baykar Technologies.
The new remotely piloted aircraft have been assigned to the 125th Combat Reconnaissance Squadron of the Croatian Air Force, which operates from the “Pukovnik Marko Živković” air base in Pleso.
Croatia has purchased a system comprising six aircraft in total, a command and control center, a training simulator, two ground control and monitoring stations, and ground data stations, as part of a contract worth 95 million dollars.
The contract also includes the supply of an initial set of spare parts including all the equipment and tools necessary for user-level maintenance and air-surface weapon systems.
In addition to a two-year warranty, it includes a two-year stay of Baykar technical experts in Croatia, training at the Baykar training center in Turkey, and transportation of the entire package to Croatia.
The Croatian Air Force will employ the TB2s not only for precision strike missions, but also in border surveillance, firefighting, reconnaissance, and data collection.
Furthermore, the aircraft will be made available to other Ministries and Agencies, having the potential to be of significant utility for persistence capabilities and the EO/IR or SAR and LIDAR suites used.
Source: Ministry of Defense, Republic of Croatia
Photo credit: @ Ministry of Defense, Republic of Croatia/F. Klen
