Bayraktar Mini UAV was the first unmanned aerial system produced entirely with domestic capital, included in the Turkish Armed Forces inventory in 2007.

[12] After learning that their products were used to create combat drones, Hampshire-based UK aircraft manufacturer Andair announced the discontinuation of all sales to Baykar Makina on 11 January 2021.

[13] The British manufacturer became the latest company to stop selling equipment to Turkey after its components were found in drones shot down during the war.

He had positions in many companies that played a leading role in Turkey's industrial sector (Burdur Tractors, Istanbul Retaining Ring Uzel, etc.).

In 2004 he decided to move on to UAV production with his son Selçuk, who at the time was pursuing a PhD degree on unmanned aerial systems at MIT.

[22] He then started to play a pioneering role in Baykar's development of indigenous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technology, implementing these projects from design to prototype, and subsequently from manufacturing stages to further R&D.

[23] According to opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, he had a religiously conservative background, but despite disdainful relations at the time between pious groups and the army, he had ties with several military figures and worked on Turkish Armed Forces projects in the late 1990s.

After attending the prestigious Robert College high school, Selcuk Bayraktar studied electrical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, graduating in 2002.

He has been hailed as a pioneer of what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan calls Ankara's rapidly developing "local and national" defence sector.