More undisclosed customers for Embraer?
December 30, 2024
This latest orders for six and four A-29 Super Tucano light attack and advanced trainer aircraft will be included in the 4Q24 backlog and deliveries are scheduled to take place in 2026.
They will add to the new sales of the Super Tucano to the Portuguese Air Force (A-29N), the Uruguayan Air Force and the Paraguayan Air Force that were announced in 2024. Embraer has now won export orders from Angola, Burkina Faso, Chile, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Indonesia, Mali, Mauritania, and the Philiipines, while the joint venture with Sierra Nevada resulted in sales to the US Air Force, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Nigeria.
Embraer says that the newly ordered aircraft “will be equipped with enhanced capabilities to perform missions such as battlefield air interdiction, close air support, maritime patrol, maritime strike and other territorial defence operations.”
The small size of the orders, the role description and the fact that Embraer did not use the new A-29N designation might imply that these aircraft are destined for smaller air forces in the developing world, and in the case of the second order, in Africa.
This could perhaps be the Ghana Air Force which orginally ordered five aircraft in 2015, subsequently adding four further A-29s to the order. None were delivered, but Embraer and the Sierra Nevada Corporation did demonstrate the A-29 Super Tucano to the Ghana Air Force at the Accra Air Force Base on 19 February 2024.
Bosco da Costa Junior, President and CEO of Embraer Defense & Security said that: “We are thrilled to announce new sales of the A-29 Super Tucano, as we see this aircraft as the right fit for many nations around the world. The A-29 is the global leader in its category because it’s a proven, reliable and well advanced aircraft.”
Embraer says that the A-29 Super Tucano is the global leader in its category, with over 290 orders and more than 570,000 flying hours logged, including 60,000 in combat. The multi-mission A-29 Super Tucano provides air forces with “versatility for armed reconnaissance, close air support, light attack, and advanced training missions on a single platform, which exponentially increases the aircraft’s availability and operational flexibility,” Embraer says, adding that: “Its robust airframe allows the aircraft to operate from unpaved runways in austere environments.”
The identity of the customers will, no doubt, become known soon enough. The two C390s announced last week are believed to be for South Africa or Chile.
