[onlyrealcuzzo]

> Turks have become top players in the military drone business after the West didn't sell them the drones.

Everything is cheaper in Turkey.

They can produce a lower quality drone for 1/10th the price. Bayraktar = $5M, Reaper = $32M.

Of course there's a market!

I doubt the US could produce a drone the quality of Bayraktar for $5M domestically. It's just too expensive here.

The Turks aren't succeeding because they're building better drones. They're succeeding because the market for drones is disposable, and so the quality doesn't need to be as high - in many cases it's better to have a lower price.

China didn't succeed because they can make better T-shirts than the US. They succeeded because they made cheaper T-shirts.

Don't confuse the two.

[blagie]

Bayraktar TB-2 versus Reaper:

- 55kg payload versus 1746kg payload

- 24k feet versus 50k feet altitude

- 150km versus 1850km range

It's not a fair comparison. They're very different classes of devices.

I do think the US could produce a Bayraktar-quality drone for under $5M. The major upside of the Bayraktar is that non-NATO countries can buy it.

Heck, I think many readers of HN could do the same (which obviously wouldn't help with sanctions). Stick a control system on a basic Cessna 152, and you've pretty much got the same capability. That's well south of $1M even.

You don't hear much about Bayraktar TB-2 (specifically) anymore since it's also not very useful anymore. It worked well before Russia was prepared. Now, we're generations ahead. Sky is full of drones, anti-drone warfare, and largely ones the ones used are a fraction of the cost of the Bayraktar TB-2 so it doesn't matter if they're shot down. The other end of the scale is ones less easy to shoot down.

edit: Corrected to write about the specific famed drone useful at the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, versus Turkish drones in general.

[mrtksn]

Turkey has a range of drones, the cheapo Bayraktar one is just the most well known.

Some of the Turkish drones are better off not to be well known though, as there are accusation of launching AI controlled attacks and the machines were in charge of picking the humans they killed in Libya - which is a no-no but probably developed by all the leading states.

Here is a link if you want to take a look: https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_possible-first-use-ai-armed...

So no, Turkey isn't in the business of making cheap low quality drones, the range is quite extensive with some models at the cutting edge. All thanks to being in need of drones but not being able to purchase even if they have the resources.

[gottorf]

> China didn't succeed because they can make better T-shirts than the US. They succeeded because they made cheaper T-shirts.

Can China make the same quality T-shirts as the US, but at a cheaper price? Then it could be considered better. For most things involving ordinary people, what matters is not what the highest possible quality thing is given no price constraints; what matters is what is economically feasible.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

The largest company in the world - Apple - would beg to differ.

People care about quality in many profitable very large industries: health care, technology, military, automotives, aircraft, etc.

Do you really want to fly on the cheapest airplane money can buy?

No.