For the first time, a civilian base station was integrated into the Aksungur Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platform, which was developed as a Medium Altitude Long Stay in Air (MALE+) class by Turkish Aerospace Industries, RaillyNews reports.

With this capability, mobile communication will be provided uninterruptedly over DataLink systems in case of disasters.

Aksungur will be able to serve as a base station as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities in disasters such as fire and earthquake.

Aksungur, which has two twin turbocharged engines that allow long-term operations up to 40.000 ft (over 12,000 meters), can accommodate EO/IR, SAR and SIGINT payloads. The platform, which made its first flight in 2019, has a record of 50 hours in the air. Aksungur, which performed fire detection and surveillance missions in Adana within the body of the General Directorate of Forestry last year, now has 2 in the inventory of the Naval Forces Command.