Super Tucano Bares Fangs for Export

Elbit avionics and helmet mounted displays give the Super Tucano full night capability.

Embraer has formally begun selling its Super Tucano trainer and light attack turboprop outside Brazil, and is stepping up its marketing of the $5.5 million turboprop here at FIDAE 2002.

The Super Tucano, available as a trainer or as a light attack aircraft, can be operated from remote, austere airfields with a minimum of support.

"It is an aircraft designed for border surveillance and counter-insurgency operations," according to Embraer CEO Maurício Botelho. The Brazilian government has placed 76 firm orders and taken 23 options for the aircraft they call the ALX, which has an all-glass cockpit by Israel's Elbit.

Also publicized this past summer was a sale of ten Super Tucanos to the Dominican Republic for missions including training and drug interdiction.

The Super Tucano has a PT6A-68/3 engine from Pratt & Whitney Canada generating 1,600 shp. It has built-in test equipment for fault identification and repair, and an onboard oxygen generator. The attack version has a pair of 50-caliber wing-mounted machine guns as well as hardpoints for bombs, rockets and missiles (including Sidewinders and potential for Python 4) and a computerized weapons management system.

The aircraft is available in single and two-seat versions. The two-pilot Super Tucano has a FLIR (forward-looking infrared) system for night surveillance and attack. Some 700 of the new trainer-fighter's predecessor, the EMB 312 Tucano, have been sold worldwide. Six of this model are being flown here at FIDAE 2002 by Brazil's Escuadrilla Fumaca aerobatic team.

Embraer is also promoting its AMX-ATA attack jet and AMX-T trainer, a high performance subsonic aircraft developed with Italy's Alenia. Eight of the aircraft have reportedly been ordered by the Venezuelan air force in a deal worth some $920 million. Options could take the number of AMX-Ts for the Venezuelans to 24. Like the ALX turboprop, the AMX jet has Elbit avionics.

Also on display here is a mock-up of the cockpit for the Mirage 2000-BR, which Embraer and Dassault are promoting for Brazil's fighter competition.