U.S. Air Force general flies Super Tucano to drum up support in defense competition

July 23, 2012 by John M. Guilfoil

An Air Force general with ties to the company pushing a Brazilian light attack plane for American purchase publicized on Monday a test flight he took in November 2011 of the Brazilian-made Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano light attack turboprop plane.

Lieutenant General David Deptula, a former fighter pilot and currently Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, sits on the advisory board for Sierra Nevada Corporation. The company is partnering with Embraer and is lobbying for the Super Tucano in the USAF Light Support Competition.

Up for grabs: A $1 billion defense contract, and Sierra Nevada has a lot of chips riding on this extremely contentious competition. The winner of the Light Support Competition will get to outfit American allies with its planes, starting with Afghanistan. The winner will be announced next year, after what have been and are sure to continue being lengthy and expensive public relations and lobbying campaigns.

MarketWatch posted the Sierra Nevada press release in its entirety on Monday.

The Super Tucano has been a riveting export success for Brazil

Sierra Nevada/Embraer already won the contest once, when the Air Force declared the Super Tucano victorious in January.

The Air Force cancelled the deal shortly afterward, citing “unspecified irregularities in the contract process” amid a threatened lawsuit by Hawker Beech, whose AT-6B is the only other finalist in the competition.

Hawker Beech, an American company, recently launched a public support campaign. Sierra Nevada has its own.

Deptula did a publicity stunt test flight of the Super Tucano, which is being called the A-29 in the U.S., using the traditional “attack” naming convention, as the plane makes its American debut at the Oshkosh air show. The plane is on display during the show, Sierra Nevada said in a statement.

The Super Tucano has been a remarkable success for Brazil, which is exporting it all over the world. It is a low-cost, easy-to-maintain turboprop with fourth generation avionics and systems that make it superb in an counter-insurgency role. Colombia, Equador, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Indonesia all use the attack plane, and orders were recently placed by Angola, Burkina Faso and Mauritania for that role.

It is, on paper, a better airplane than the competing AT-6B, but it is possible that the Super Tucano has been over-aggressively marketed in an attempt to win support for a Brazilian airplane over an American one.

Deptula sang the Super T’s praises in Sierra Nevada’s media release:

“Given that now, more than ever, the United States and its allies need to find cost-effective, innovative ways to successfully defeat a variety of non-traditional threats, I wanted to see for myself whether the Super Tucano deserves the superb reputation it already possesses,” he said. “One of the things you notice immediately is the very wide track and high ground clearance of the Super T. Wide, sturdy gear, and low pressure tires mean superior ‘off road’ and crosswind performance.

“The A-29 flies like a ‘fighter’ should. It’s responsive, yet forgiving; rugged, yet advanced. If it weren’t for the prop out front, I would have thought I was flying a jet.”

On the other side of the battlefield, the AT-6B is an armed variant of the Beechcraft T-6 Texan II turboprop trainer with the same Pratt & Whitney engine as the Super Tucano. It is slightly smaller but is very comparable in many levels. The Super Tucano was built as a combat aircraft and features things like integrated machine guns, which the converted trainer has to relegate to hardpoints.

Final Air France Flight 447 report cites pilot error

July 5, 2012 by John M. Guilfoil

The Brazilian frigate Constituição carries the vertical stabilizer from Flight 447 (Agência Brasil)

The final report issued Thursday by the French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis blames a series of errors by the pilots that directly led to Air France Flight 447 crashing into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009.

The crash of the Airbus A330-200 flying from Brazil to France killed 228 people and is described as the worst air disaster in French history.

Thursday’s report says the pilots failed to react correctly to problems with the airplane’s speed sensors and failed to — and were not trained to — make corrective maneuvers when things went wrong.

Flight 447’s gauges gave conflicting air speed readings minutes before the crash, and as the plane began to stall and lose altitude, the pilots “pulled up” to point the nose upward, which is the exact opposite of what a pilot is supposed to do during a stall.

Leaked cockpit recordings show the pilots panicking as things began to go wrong, as one pilot pulls up on the controls despite an audible computer voice repeating the word “Stall!”

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The co-pilot yells “climb, climb, climb,” and the pilot answers “but I’ve been pulling back on the stick for a while now.”

The plane fell 38,000 feet in 3:30.

The report issues recommendations for proper training of pilots and corrected instruments for planes. But mainly, aviation professionals and enthusiasts will likely focus on the crew of Flight 447’s lack of situational awareness and lack of coolness under pressure, the likes of which helped “Sully” Sullenberger successfully ditch US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009, saving all 155 aboard after a bird strike.

Brazil sees opening in international arms trade as US restricts tech exports

June 27, 2012 by John M. Guilfoil

Brazil is seeing an economic windfall from military exports to Africa, as American export restrictions to often war-torn regions have given an opening for other industrialized nations to cash in.

Brazilian manufacturer Embraer recently inked $180 million in orders for its Super Tucano for counterinsurgency, ground attack, and border operations in Angola, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, according to UPI.

The government has openly embraced these types of deals, which have allowed Embraer to gain openings in emerging markets. Recent US policy has strongly restricted the trade of American-made military equipment.

But the Super Tucano has much more going for it than government relations. The Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano, (called A-29 by the Brazilian Air Force) is a turboprop attack plane that looks more like a World War II heavy fighter than a 21st century air force piece. But the brand new aircraft, which was introduced in 2003, has proven perfect for second and third world militaries that are often dealing with less-than-technologically-sophisticated conflicts.

Brazil already operates about 11 Super Tucanos, and the air forces of Colombia, Equador, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Indonesia also have the plane in use.

The Super Tucano is heavily-armed for a light attacker, able to carry a variety of air-to-air missiles, air-to-surface missiles, rockets, bombs, laser-guided munitions, and up to three guns. Looks are where the WWII-looking nostalgia ends. The plane also has advanced radar, FLIR, night vision, a glass cockpit, and an encrypted data link.

It’s also cheap to buy and cheap to fly. The plane only costs $9-14 million to purchase and only about $500/hour to fly in upkeep and operational costs.

“The Super Tucano is highly efficient and presents low operating costs,” Embraer Defense and Security President Luiz Carlos Aguiar told UPI. “Its capability for surveillance and counter-insurgency missions makes it ideal for service on the continent of Africa.”

Burkina Faso received three aircraft already. Six are on order for Angola, with three arriving by year’s end.

The military hardware export move is part of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s ambitious plan to challenge major international corporations with its domestic industry, particularly when it comes to aviation.

AMX

June 27, 2012 by John M. Guilfoil

A Brazilian Air Force AMX A-1A (Media credit/Chris Lofting via Wikimedia)

Here’s a tale of international teamwork.

The AMX, known as the A-1 in Brazil, is an impressive ground attack craft developed in a Italian-Brazilian joint venture among Alenia, Embraer, and Aermacchi.

It is a high-performing, modern platform that is perfect for its stated mission of low-level attack, close air support, and battlefield strafing.

The AMX is subsonic but can fly day or night and operate out of rough or damaged airbases. It features an ahead-of-its-time design that feels more like the 1990s than early 1980s. The AMX features both a low infrared signature and reduced radar cross section that makes it difficult to target the plane with ground-to-air or air-to-air missiles. It comes equipped with electronic countermeasures, wingtip air-to-air missiles, and nose-mounted guns that lets it hold its own against other aircraft. It also features carbon fiber parts like the fin and elevators.

By the late 70s, the Italians were looking for an attack fighter to replace its Aeritalia G.91s and F-104 “Starfighters.” Rather than compete — again — on a ground attack jet, Aeritalia and Aermacchi decided to join forces. In 1980, Brazil was looking for a very similar plane. So in July 1981, Italy and Brazil agreed on a set of specifications both countries were looking for, and Brazilian aerospace firm Embraer was brought into the fold.

The resulting rugged design features high-mounted wings, leading edge slats, trailing edge flaps, and overwing spoilers to make the AMX take off and land easier and make the plane more maneuverable.

The AMX has a redundant control system that is a hybrid of modern fly-by-wire technology and hydraulics. The rudder, tailplane, and spoilers are digital, while the ailerons and elevators are hydraulic. The ailerons, elevators, and rudder can operate manually if systems or hydraulics are lost.

The plane is not particularly fast, topping off at just under 570 mph, but it doesn’t have to be. In filling a similar role to the earlier Su-25 “Frogfoot” or American A-10 “Warthog,” the AMX has to be able to fly low and slow through a theatre of operations, taking out designated ground targets and providing support to troops on the ground.

As a result, an aged Rolls-Royce Spey 807 turbofan, similar to one of the four that powers the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod proved to be an effective, reliable, and affordable alternative to American engines, which come with rigid export restrictions.

An AMX cockpit (Media credit/Santo Cuce via PlanePictures.Net)

Export restrictions also resulted in the only substantive change in armament between Italy and Brazil. The Italian AMX carries the M61 Vulcan 20 mm cannon, but Brazil was not allowed to import the Vulcan, so it uses a pair of 30 mm DEFA 554s.

The first AMX prototype flew in 1984, though it was destroyed in a crash on the fifth test flight, killing its pilot. Despite the setback, the airplane proved reliable, and Italy took its first deliveries in 1988. Brazil followed in 1989, and 200 AMXs have been built to date.

Today, the Brazilian Air Force operates 60 AMXs with eight trainers. The Italian Air Force has a fleet of 43 AMXs and 12 AMX-T trainers.

Success in battle

You don’t hear about the AMX’s war success with the same dramatic flair that journalists herald the A-10 and its Avenger cannon or the Su-25, battling it out in Afghanistan with rockets. But the AMX has proved itself a workhorse in battle.

Six AMX fighters from Italy deployed to Bosnia twice in the 1990s. Italy also sent the AMX to Kosovo in 1999. Here, using Israeli-engineered “Opher” guidance kits, traditionally “dumb” Mk 82s were converted to infrared-guided bombs and were very accurate. AMXs flew 252 combat sorties over Kosovo without a single lost aircraft.

“The AMX series of aircraft under the Italian banner saw extensive — and often overlooked — service int he war against Serbia,” wrote the website Military Factory in its AMX sheet. “All in all, the AMX International AMX is quite a worthy adversary.”

The Italian AMX also saw action in the 2011 Libyan uprising. Italian Tornados and AMX fighters launched more than 550 bombs and missiles during the campaign.

In recent years, Italy and Brazil have separately launched initiatives to upgrade the AMX. In 2005, Italy launched Aggionamento Capacità Operative e Logistiche — Operational and Logistical Capacity Upgrade on 55 of its AMXs, adding smart bomb guidance and new cockpit displays.

Brazil is rolling out the A-1M variant with advanced radar and data sharing, as well as an infrared smart bomb guidance and a glass cockpit. The first A-1M prototype flew on June 20, 2012.

The Brazilian upgrade was originally scheduled to roll out in 2007, but was delayed.

Brazil, in a news report, says the upgrade is necessary “after strategic assessments and is necessary for the aircraft to compete with other countries in case of external threats.”

The upgrades may raise the exportability of the AMX. In 1999, Venezuela tried to buy several AMXs from Brazil, but the sale was halted after US intervention. The Philippines is reportedly exploring the AMX as part of a recently signed defense deal with Italy.

Specifications

General

Crew: One-Two depending on variant (Two in AMX-T trainer)
Length: 43 ft 5 in
Wingspan: 29 ft 1.5 in
Height: 14 ft 11.25 in
Empty weight: 14,771 lb
Max. takeoff weight: 28,700 lb
Engine: One Rolls-Royce Spey 807 turbofan, 11,030 lbf

Performance

Maximum speed: 568 mph
Combat radius: 553 mi
Range: 1,800 nmi
Ceiling: 42,650 ft
Thrust/weight: 0.47

Armament

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Guns:

One 20 mm M61 Vulcan 6-barreled gatling cannon (Italy)
Two 30 mm Bernardini Mk-164 cannon (Brazil)

Missiles: Two AIM-9 Sidewinders or comparable air-to-air missiles
Bombs/Rockets: 8,380 lb on five hardpoints

Essential Reading

We can’t recommend any actual books that are written about the AMX. There are a few that discuss the AMX. and we’ve singled out the best ones to the right.

Online Resources:

Milavia — Great photos
AirFighters.com — Even better photos
Wikipedia