SAHA EXPO 2026 took place from May 5 to 9 at the Istanbul Expo Center in Istanbul, Turkey. The exhibition is held on a two-year cycle and has established itself as one of the leading defense, aerospace, and space industry exhibitions in the region. For Perseus Electronics, this edition of SAHA marked our participation on the Istanbul show floor as a joint exhibitor with our Turkish distribution partner, Same Elektronik. Our booth number was 8L-16.
Exhibiting with a local partner changes the dynamic of a show in ways that matter. Same Elektronik has an established presence in the Turkish defense and aerospace market, and their team brought context and relationships to the booth that we could not have replicated by showing up alone. The conversations we had over those five days reflected that. Visitors came with specific questions, and having a team on the ground that understands the local procurement environment made a difference in how those conversations went.
We brought four product categories to booth 8L-16: military-grade cooling fans for airborne platforms, motors, common hardware components including locking bars and vibration dampers, and disc heat sinks from our thermal control product line. The inclusion of disc heat sinks at this show reflected the broader thermal management requirements we are seeing across the platform types that came up most frequently in visitor inquiries.
Turkey has invested heavily in its domestic defense industry, and the platforms being developed and fielded there are technically demanding. Cooling and thermal management are not afterthoughts in that environment. They are design constraints that get addressed early.
Visitor inquiries at the booth concentrated around four platform types: unmanned aerial vehicles, avionics systems, electro-optical pods, and ground radar. The UAV sector in Turkey is particularly active, and that was visible on the show floor. The questions coming from that direction were technical and specific, which is what you want to see at an exhibition like this.
The electro-optical pod and avionics inquiries followed a similar pattern. These are enclosed, thermally constrained environments where component selection has a direct effect on system performance and service life. The ground radar inquiries were consistent with what we also saw at DSA 2026 earlier this year, which suggests that ground-based sensing platforms remain a consistent area of active procurement across multiple regions.
Perseus Electronics and Same Elektronik have been working together to develop the Turkish market for our product lines. SAHA EXPO 2026 was an opportunity to put that partnership in front of the Turkish defense community in a visible way. We are continuing to build on the conversations that started at the show, and Same Elektronik remains our point of contact for procurement and technical inquiries originating from Turkey.
If you are based in Turkey and have a requirement related to any of the product categories we exhibited, reaching Same Elektronik directly is the most efficient route.
For inquiries from other regions, the contact information is on this page.
Perseus Electronics will be back for SAHA EXPO 2028.
Head of International Markets, Perseus Electronics Co., Ltd. Christine leads Perseus Electronics' overseas market development, with a focus on defense and aerospace sectors across the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and European regions. She represents Perseus at major international defense exhibitions and works directly with procurement teams and system integrators on program-level engagements.
