---
title: Indigenous Aircraft Carrier Platform
type: technology
url: "https://www.envisioning.com/research/aegis/turkey__indigenous-aircraft-carrier"
hub: aegis
summary: "MUGEM indigenous aircraft carrier began construction in January 2025, building on TCG Anadolu LHD experience to create Turkey's first purpose-built carrier for jet UCAV operations."
---

# Indigenous Aircraft Carrier Platform

MUGEM indigenous aircraft carrier began construction in January 2025, building on TCG Anadolu LHD experience to create Turkey's first purpose-built carrier for jet UCAV operations.
- Technology Readiness Level: 3/9
- Impact: 3/5
- Investment: 4/5
The MUGEM (Milli Uçak Gemisi — National Aircraft Carrier) program represents Turkey's ambition to build a purpose-designed aircraft carrier, expanding beyond the TCG Anadolu light helicopter carrier/drone carrier. Steel cutting began on January 2, 2025. The carrier is designed to operate the Kizilelma jet-powered UCAV and future unmanned combat aircraft, pioneering a UCAV-carrier concept that no nation has yet fielded.

The TCG Anadolu, originally designed as an LHD for F-35B operations, was repurposed after Turkey's exclusion from the F-35 program. It became the world's first drone carrier, designed to operate TB3 and Kizilelma UCAVs. MUGEM builds on this operational concept with a larger, purpose-built hull that can support sustained jet UCAV operations including higher launch and recovery rates.

This UCAV-carrier paradigm may prove more consequential than traditional carrier aviation. A carrier air wing of unmanned fighters costs a fraction of manned aircraft, doesn't risk pilot lives, and can be attrited and replaced rapidly. Turkey is pioneering a naval aviation model that medium powers could adopt — one that doesn't require the trillion-dollar investment of US-style carrier strike groups.

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Source: Envisioning — Technology Research Institute (https://www.envisioning.com/research/aegis/turkey__indigenous-aircraft-carrier)