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On sale from September 19Thomas Newdick
Email at:
[email protected]mbraer’s KC-390 twin-jet airlifter was
given a valuable vote of confidence
by the Portuguese government’s July
11 announcement that it’s placed a firm order
for five of the indigenous Brazilian transports.
There’s been no shortage of international
interest in the KC-390, which has received
letters of intent (LOI) from Argentina (six aircraft),
Chile (six), Colombia (12) and the Czech
Republic (two). Until the Portuguese move,
however, firm export orders had proven elusive.
Developing a military transport to provide
a challenge to Lockheed Martin’s C-
is no easy task, but significantly the Força
Aérea Portuguesa (FAP, Portuguese AirForce) will use its new KC-390s to replace
‘legacy’ Hercules from 2023. That’s a point
in favour of the Embraer product, which
the manufacturer describes as offering the
lowest life-cycle cost on the market.
Embraer Defense & Security president and
CEO Jackson Schneider said: “The Portuguese
KC-390 will meet new interoperability
requirements, in the areas of secure
navigation, data and voice transmission,
that will allow the KC-390 to integrate joint
operations in multinational alliances.”
Back in Brazil, the KC-390 is now in full series
production, and service entry with the Brazilian
Air Force is expected in the third quarter of the
year with follow-on deliveries of the 30 aircraft
on order scheduled throughout the year.
As the largest international partner in
the programme, Portugal’s KC-390 order
may not have been a surprise, but it was
a long time coming. OGMA-IndústriaAeronáutica de Portugal joined the KC-
team as a partner in 2010, at which point
the FAP envisaged buying six examples.
OGMA is building centre fuselage panels,
elevators, fairings and landing gear doors.
Embraer must now hope that other countries
make good on their initial interest. To target
customers further afield, the Brazilian company
will look to a partnership with Boeing, under
which the US aerospace giant will help Embraer
“promote and develop new markets”. There’s
even a possibility that a KC-390 production line
could open up in the US – allowing it to confront
the C-130 head on in its own backyard.Kickstart for the KC-
E
You can sign up for our free email newsletter by
going to http://www.airforcesmonthly.comKC-390 prototype PT-ZNF wearing the fl ags of confi rmed customers Brazil and Portugal, plus two of the countries to have issued an LOI for a possible
purchase of the multi-mission airlifter: Argentina and the Czech Republic. Sgt Batista/Força Aérea BrasileiraComment
http://www.airforcesmonthly.com #378 September 2019 // 303 Comments AFM Sep2019.indd 3 8/2/2019 2:16:17 PM