Özdemir Bayraktar | An Akıncı Passed Through This World Documentary
You may digitally download and read the book Özdemir Bayraktar (February 1, 1949 - October 18, 2021), published simultaneously with this documentary, from Baykar’s website.
📖 https://mth.tc/Ozdemir-Bayraktar-Kitap
ÖZDEMİR BAYRAKTAR | AN AKINCI PASSED THROUGH THIS WORLD
FOREWORD
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF AN AKINCI…
This documentary and the accompanying book are not merely the life story of an engineer, an entrepreneur, or a father. They bear witness to a life lived in the spirit of an “Akıncı”—stretching from the fierce waves of Garipçe to the rugged mountains of Gabar, from a windowless workshop to the endless blue of the sky.
These lines are the logbook of a father, a husband, and a man devoted to a cause—someone who walked on the path he believed to be true, undeterred by storms.
We—his life companion Canan, and his sons Haluk, Selçuk, and Ahmet—knew him not only as the pillar of our home, but as our guide, our source of inspiration, and our closest companion on the journey.
When he began his journey saying, “Let us ignite a spark and let this fire begin. It does not matter who starts the fire, so long as we have done our part,” he did not merely launch a technological initiative; he ignited the self-confidence of our nation’s youth. We, too, spent countless nights working with our father, sustained by our mother’s endless patience, prayers, and steadfast composure.
Özdemir Bayraktar devoted his life to the fully independent and strong future of our country. He never left for work in the morning and returned in the evening. For us, “father” meant a workshop scented with boron oil, milling and lathe machines operated together on weekends, drawings that lasted through the night, and an unending determination to struggle.
He never separated his home from his work—nor his family from his country—because remaining in business was, for him, not a commercial activity but a struggle for survival.
He could not be confined within labels or categories. Wherever there was a seemingly unbreakable knot, an impossible task, or a bureaucratic obstacle, he had to be there. To us, he was an icebreaker—shattering icebergs and clearing the path ahead. He taught us that the campaign mattered more than victory, and that the struggle was more sacred than success.
He blended the sailor’s courage inherited from his father, Lütfü Reis, with the discipline instilled by his mother, Emine Hanım, and enriched it with the culture of brotherhood he absorbed at Kabataş Boys’ High School. He was a man of heart who took that noble spirit and instilled it in us—and in the hundreds of engineers he trained.
When we were students, he expressed a concern he summarized as: “We train them here, only for them to go and lay their eggs in another’s nest.” This was the purest expression of his love for his country. Today, the spark in the eyes of every child who touches an aircraft at TEKNOFEST represents the living legacy of his dream and final wish: “Let a child come and touch an aircraft.”
He was not only our father but also our closest comrade in our cause. Whenever we faced technical dilemmas, he illuminated our path with his engineering genius—just as he did in life with his principle of being “straight as an arrow” amid its sharp turns and trials. His greatest legacy was neither factories nor aircraft. His true legacy was never straying from the path one knows to be true.
He engraved upon our minds the meaning of surrender contained in the words, “From Him we have come and to Him we shall return.” He taught us that our work is not driven by worldly ambition, but a longing for divine grace and service to the nation.
He refused the comfort of complacency. Troubled by the sight of soldiers melting snow for drinking water at a forward base, he cut through red tape to commission a water pipeline. He was a “Free General” who shared meals with soldiers, shaved his moustache, and donned camouflage to work in counterterrorism zones.
Even during illness, he never left his factory. He brought his sickbed into the workshop, preparing technical analyses and drawings until his final breath. The designs we discovered on his computers after his passing stand as silent yet powerful witnesses to his determination—summed up in his words: “I focus on the campaign, not victory.”
Though he is no longer physically among us, his principles—deeply embedded in every matter—continue to guide us as we walk the path of the National Technology Initiative.
What you are about to read reflects a life lived by the principle that “the self has no dignity; only the work you do has dignity.” Our father passed through this world like an AKINCI—leaving behind not only aircraft and technologies, but above all, millions of faithful young people who believe that they too can succeed.
We will continue marching toward the Red Apple you once pointed to, holding our banner high.
May you rest in paradise. May your soul be at peace.
THE BAYRAKTAR FAMILY