The Ministry of National Defense, Chief of the General Staff, Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) and TÜBİTAK SAGE were amongst the stakeholders of TEKNOFEST Istanbul 2019 as institutions and Aselsan, Baykar Makina, BMC, Havelsan, Roketsan, STM, TEI, TR Motor and TA as sector companies. President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN visited TEKNOFEST Istanbul on September 21, 2019 with his family. During his visit, ERDOĞAN was accompanied by some Ministers and Force Commanders.

Within the scope of TEKNOFEST Istanbul 2019, Turkey's largest technology event attracted a great deal of interest from citizens of all ages, 19 technology competitions were held under 38 different categories such as the HackIstanbul 2019 CTF Competition, Robotics Competitions, Robotaxi-Full Scale Autonomous Vehicle Competition, Efficiency Challenge Electric Vehicle Competition, Flying Car Design Competition, Rocket Competition, Fighter UAV Competition, Technology for Humanity Competition, University Students Research Project Competitions, International Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Competition, Unmanned Underwater Systems Competition, Robotic Conquest 1453 Competition, Artificial Intelligence Competition, Model Satellite Competition, Swarm UAV Simulation Competition, Travel Datathon Competition, Mini Jet Radial Compressor Design and Turbofan Motor Design Competition. A total of 17,373 teams and 50,000 competitors from 122 countries and 81 provinces of Turkey had applied to the competitions and over 2,000 teams and 10,000 competitions qualified as finalists. Heading out with the "National Technology Move" slogan and aiming for Turkey's transformation into a technology producing society, TEKNOFEST Istanbul 2019 also hosted the World Drone Cup 2019 (WDC 2019). In the competitions organized in the specially prepared sections, the pilots competed with the drones they designed and assembled. 64 drone pilots from 32 countries, including also Turkey, China, Japan, Brazil and the United States attended the World Drone Cup 2019 which was executed by STM Company, and exhibited their talents. Five pilots namely Batu ERİLKUN (11), Atakan MERCİMEK (13), Özgürcan ÖZÇELİK (34), Cem KÖSEL (43) and Erdem ÜSTÜNER (30) represented Turkey in the competition. At the end of the qualifying rounds, 32 pilots qualified for the final. Dane GRACE from Denmark won  first place in the WDC 2019, followed by Marc ESPUNA from Spain and Alex ZAMORA from the same country. The grand prize was TL 30,000 and the second and third pilots won TL 20,000 and TL 10,000 TL, respectively.

Within the scope of the six-day festival where over TL 3 million-worth awards were given in technology competitions, the awards of the winners were given by President Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN on September 21 and to other finalists by Vice President Fuat OKTAY on September 22.  

During 2019 TEKNOFEST Istanbul, Solo Türk, Turkish Stars, Russian Knights Aerobatic Team flying with Russian Air Forces’ Su-30SM planes and Red Bull Air Race pilots with Su-35 combat aircraft juiced up the event with their demonstration flights. 38 different fixed and rotating winged aircraft with different sizes and tasks were exhibited in the  TEKNOFEST Istanbul exhibition area. Amongst them were the T129B Mk-I ATAK Attack and Tactical Reconnaissance Helicopter, HURKUS Training Aircraft, S-70İ (one of two helicopters produced at the Sikorsky plant in Poland for the Gendarmerie General Command, the helicopters were delivered to Turkey in 2018 painted with white, red and dark blue colors of the Gendarmerie, Utility Helicopter, Bell 429 of the Security General Directorate  A400M Military Transport Aircraft, S-70B SeaHawk DSH/SSH Helicopter, CH-47F Chinook Heavy-Lift Helicopter, Russian passenger aircraft MC-21-300, Antonov 178 Military Transport Aircraft from Ukrainian Antonov Company, AKINCI PT-2 Attack Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (prototype number two) by Baykar Makina, CEZERİ Flying Car prototype and the AKSUNGUR UAV prototype of Turkish Aerospace. At the land vehicles section of the exhibition area, 9 vehicles were exhibited such as BMC’s AMAZON, AMAZON UKS (with Remote Control System) and VURAN Tactical Wheeled Armored Vehicles, KİRPİ MRAP's new version KİRPİ-II, TUĞRA Tank Carrier (TTA), ALTAY AMT T1 Demonstrator and the company's brand new armored pick-up TULGA. 

Aselsan participated in TEKNOFEST Istanbul with a large booth established on an area of 400 square meters and exhibited a series of latest technology products, particularly the unmanned systems. Utility Helicopter Cockpit, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robots Ertuğrul-I, Armed Kaplan and Autonomous Kaplan, Remote Controlled Weapon Platform UKAP, ANTI-UAV, Multirotor Unmanned System Serçe 2, Mini Unmanned Flying System Nano-UAV, KARAGÖZ Aerostat Surveillance System and AKUSTİKA Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, all of which were produced with domestic and national technologies, were introduced at the company’s booth during the Festival.

Baykar Makina, which had delivered 98 BAYRAKTAR TB2 Tactical UAVs and BAYRAKTAR TB2-S Armed-UAVS to the Turkish Armed Forces and security forces as of November 23, 2019, having completed 150,000 hours of flight, unveiled its newly developed BAYRAKTAR AKINCI Attack UAV System and CEZERİ Flying Car at TEKNOFEST Istanbul.

Havelsan demonstrated the HEZARFEN Parachute Simulator (it has been delivered to be utilized during the training of the paratroopers of the Land Forces Command), Sniper Simulator and Helicopter Simulator that have been developed completely with the domestic and indigenous facilities for the Turkish Armed Forces and the security forces. Havelsan attracted great interest with the aforementioned simulators and contributed to the Swarm UAV Simulation Contest held as part of the TEKNOFEST İstanbul 2019 as well. The company also offered the young people visiting its booth the opportunity to experience the Command Control Systems developed for the Air, Surface and Underwater Platforms at the virtual reality environment. Moreover, Havelsan’s booth hosted the training for the national operating system PARDUS and the augmented reality cyber security game designed to raise awareness to the cyber threats.

Roketsan, as the Main Sponsor of TEKNOFEST İstanbul 2019 regarding projectile, missile and space technologies, displayed the scale models of air-to-surface-guided ammunition and artillery rockets like UMTAS and CİRİT and Satellite Launch System (SLS) at its booth. At the same time, Roketsan made the dreams of young audience come true with the Rocket Competition it held with TÜBİTAK SAGE. Roketsan was the sponsor of the Rocket Competition conducted with TÜBİTAK SAGE within the scope of TEKNOFEST İstanbul 2019 and due to security measures the event was held prior to the festival on September 4-11, 2019 at Hisar Artillery Range at Akhisar. 570 Rocket Teams applied for two different categories composed of Low and High Altitude (1.500m and 3.000m) and 79 finalists consisting of high school, university and post-graduate students competed at the event where the participants launched their rockets to the air. The rockets competing at the competition were demonstrated at the joint showground of Roketsan and TÜBİTAK SAGE at TEKNOFEST İstanbul. The competition was accomplished successfully for the first time in Turkey after the U.S. and thus went down in history. Roketsan Chairman Prof. Faruk YİĞİT announced that students ranking the highest at the TEKNOFEST competitions would be hired without any conditions in case they applied to vacant positions at Roketsan.

On the other hand, the young participants built mock-up rockets at the workshop held at the joint showground of Roketsan and TÜBİTAK SAGE. The children and young participants seized the opportunity to learn while they played at this workshop during the festival.

STM was one of the stakeholders of the TEKNOFEST Istanbul 2019 and the company took part at the event as the executor of the “World Drone Cup 2019” contest where the world’s leading drone pilots displayed their capabilities. Meanwhile at the digital game area built at the company’s booth, the visitors seized the opportunity to experience the WDC2019 via exactly the same digital augmented virtual reality game. ALPAGU, KARGU and TOGAN drones and scale models of FocusFlite Flight Simulator as well as LAGARI and PIRISAT satellites were also demonstrated at the STM booth. 

Turkish Aerospace presented all its products, in particular the National Combat Aircraft (MMU/TF-X) followed by Turkey and the whole world, to its visitors at the TEKNOFEST Istanbul Aviation, Space and Technology held at Istanbul Atatürk Airport on September 17-22, 2019. Within this scope, the exact mock-up of the 5th generation National Combat Aircraft that was introduced at the Paris Air Show 2019 in France in June was displayed in Turkey for the first time at TEKNOFEST while GÖKBEY, ANKA, AKSUNGUR, Heavy Weight Attack Helicopter (ATAK-2) and HÜRJET were presented to the visitors. HÜRKUŞ Training Aircraft conducted air shows as part of the festival. Turkish Aerospace also introduced newly developed mobile game application named as “Operation ATAK” at TEKNOFEST İstanbul 2019 to the game fans. It was announced that “Operation ATAK” could be downloaded from the application centers without any charges and the application was launched with a surprise event at TEKNOFEST İstanbul 2019. 

TEI demonstrated the TJ90, TJ35 and TP38 engines developed and manufactured through indigenous resources, the Experimental Turbojet Test Stand developed for the ground tests of the TJ90 turbojet engine and the scale model of the L-39 Albatros jet training aircraft that was imported to be utilized in the flight tests of the TJ90 model and was exhibited at TEKNOFEST for the first time as part of the festival. TEI also held a Mini Jet Radial Compressor Design Competition at its booth at TEKNOFEST 2019.

Following the application process that lasted on February 28, 2019, the Preliminary Design Reports were evaluated on April 19, 2019 and the teams that deserve to move onto the next stage were announced. The finalist teams were identified on June 22, 2019 when the Critical Design Reports were announced and the results were declared on September 15 at TEKNOFEST upon the completion of the assembly and test processes. 

107 teams attended the competition. The radial compressors designed by three finalist teams were manufactured at the facilities of TEI and the tests were completed as the compressors were installed to the TEI-TJ90 turbojet engine. According to the assessments made after all test processes, MAX-THRUST Team from Necmettin Erbakan University ranked first, FAMES Team from Gazi University came in second and AERODEBI Team from Eskişehir Osmangazi University came in third. President ERDOĞAN handed the award to the winner team and Vice President OKTAY presented the awards to the second and third teams. TEI announced that it will be employing the members of the winner teams at TEI for their contribution and support to the indigenous engine projects.

TR Motor, at its booth at the festival, informed its visitors on the efforts on the development of the indigenous turbofan aircraft engine while it entertained and trained the children, adults and elderly visitors on the working principles of the aircraft engine at the Engine Workshop built at its booth. The mobile section model of the J85-GE-13 turbojet engine utilized at the F-5A/B aircrafts displayed at the TR Motor’s booth drew considerable interest. Furthermore, for increasing the interest towards the aviation engines, TR Motor also became the sponsor of the Military Turbofan Engine Design Competition in order to encourage the students to work at gas turbine engine technologies area that is extremely critical for our country. The content of the competition was identified as “the renewal of the turbofan engine of a currently functioning military jet for the year 2029” and with this competition the “improvement of the fuel consumption and propulsion/weight ratio” of the existing turbofan engine is aimed.

TR Motor was the sponsor of the Turbofan Aircraft Engine Design Competition and 112 teams applied to be contestants. TOBB Economy and Technology University’s Mechanical Engineering (ETU) students Baran İPER, Burak CENİK, Çağdaş Cem ERGİN and Tacettin Utku SÜER won the competition with the ETU-GRIFFON Turbofan Engine they designed. JET-KILLERS came in second and AIR FLOW came in third at the competition. The number of the teams decreased to 23 after the preselection and only 12 teams out of the 112 applicant teams deserved to attend the final design stage. 

TÜBİTAK attended TEKNOFEST Istanbul 2019 at its booth of 900 m2 with its products and various events with the participation of its Institutes and Presidential departments (BİLGEM – Informatics and Information Security Research Center, MAM – Marmara Research Center, Defense Industries Research and Development Institute, TUG- National Observatory, UME-National Metrology Institute, UZAY- Space Technologies Research Institute, ULAKBİM- National Academic Network and Information Center, UİDB – International Cooperation Department, BİDEB- Directorate of Science Fellowships and Grant Programs and Science and Society Department in addition to six Science Centers (Bursa, Elazığ, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Üsküdar) and the DeneYap Workshops.

2019 TÜBİTAK International Unmanned Air Vehicles Competition was conducted as part of TEKNOFEST on September 16-19, 2019 at İstanbul Yenikapı Showground. A total of 112 teams from Turkey and abroad attended the competition held in two categories of Fixed Wing and Rotating Wing air vehicles. INSTITUT TEKNOLOGI SEPULUH team from Institut Teknologı Sepuluh Nopember University came first in the Fixed Wing category, TEAM ALBATROS from Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University ranked number two and APIS R&D Team from Istanbul Technical University came in third. RACLAB Team from Konya Technical University won the competition held in Rotating Wing category