By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Defence Industry Chief Ismail Demir has said that Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) converted the SIMSEK (Lightning) high-speed target drone into a missile, Yeni Shafak newspaper has reported.

"Our target plane, SIMSEK, tired of being hit, has now decided to shoot! SIMSEK has become a GPS-guided missile that can fly autonomously and hit targets at long distances. He didn't tell the distance. Congratulations TAI, Congratulations ROKETSAN," Demir wrote on his official Twitter account.

TAI SIMSEK is a turbojet-powered radio-controlled high-speed target drone designed, developed and built by the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in 2009-12 for the needs of the Turkish armed forces.

Turkish Aerospace Inc. is the center of technology in design, development, manufacturing, integration of aerospace systems, modernization, and after-sales support in Turkey.

Located in Ankara, the Turkish Aerospace production plant covers an area of 5 million square meters with an industrial facility of 150,000 square meters.

The company has a modern aircraft facility furnished with high technology machinery and equipment that provide extensive manufacturing capabilities ranging from parts manufacturing to aircraft assembly, flight tests and delivery.

As of 2010, Turkish Aerospace employs over 1,500 engineers. Of them, approximately 850 are research and development engineers working in military research projects.