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Embraer expects to announce two more contracts by year-end that promise to extend production of the A-29 Super Tucano light fighter and advanced trainer, company executives tell Aviation Week.
“I can say that we are about to announce two additional orders still this year,” said Bosco da Costa Junior, CEO of Embraer’s Defense and Security business. Bosco declined to elaborate on the identities of the buyers, but several options are possible.
The commander of the Lebanese Air Force told Aviation Week in July that he would like to stand up a second squadron of A-29s, adding to the six Super Tucanos that entered service a decade ago.
In June, Portuguese Defense Minister Joao Nuno Lacerda Teixeira de Melo announced selecting the NATO-configured A-29N, but no contract has been signed.
Embraer and U.S. partner Sierra Nevada Corp. displayed the A-29’s capabilities to the Ghana Air Force in a public event staged in Accra in February. Embraer also demonstrated the A-29 to the Gabonese Air Force in 2016.
“We are in very advanced conversations with two countries,” da Costa said. “I think the demand for the operations the Super Tucano is capable of—armed reconnaissance, light attack, advanced trainer—especially in advanced training, the Super Tucano is getting a lot of attention.”
Earlier this year, Uruguay and Paraguay signed deals to buy six A-29s each, claiming several aircraft that Embraer built on speculation. Embraer also is preparing a package of midlife upgrades for the Brazilian Air Force A-29s that first entered service in 2003, da Costa said.
“We are discussing with them a package to update their fleet of A-29s,” da Costa said. “I think their priority now is to modernize their of A-29s.”
The U.S. Air Force, meanwhile, transferred three A-29s to the Test Pilot School fleet at Edwards AFB, California, earlier this week. The aircraft’s status had been unclear since their previous owner, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), eliminated the Combat Aviation Advisor mission, which the Super Tucanos had served.
But Embraer executives have not given up on additional sales of A-29s to the U.S. military. The company spent over a decade competing for contracts for light armed reconnaissance and armed overwatch missions. But Special Operations Command instead selected the L3Harris/Air Tractor OA-1K in 2022 for the Armed Overwatch program. Although that program remains in progress, Embraer still believes the A-29 could play a role in that mission for AFSOC.
“We still believe that it would be the ideal platform for the Armed Overwatch mission,” said Frederico Lemos, chief commercial officer for Embraer Defense and Security. “We have an assembly line ready, and completely available in Jacksonville [Florida] to produce some units of this airplane for the U.S. demand.”
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