Super Tucano Aircraft

As a huge fan of the British WW2 Spitfire aircrafts, I love the Super Tucano which reminds me a kind of Spitfire Mk IX. The Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano, also named ALX or A-29, is a Brazilian turboprop light attack aircraft designed and built by Embraer as a development of the Embraer EMB 312 Tucano. The A-29 Super Tucano carries a wide variety of weapons, including precision-guided munitions, and was designed to be a low-cost system operated in low-threat environments. In addition to its manufacture in Brazil, Embraer has set up a production line in the United States in conjunction with Sierra Nevada Corporation for the manufacture of A-29s to export customers.

Spitfire Mk IX

In 2008, the U.S. Navy began testing the Super Tucano at the behest of the U.S. Special Operations Command for its potential use to support special warfare operations, giving it the official U.S. designation A-29B. In 2009, the Super Tucano was offered in a U.S. Air Force competition for 100 counterinsurgency aircraft. On 12 April 2010, Brazil signed an agreement that opened negotiations for the acquisition of 200 Super Tucanos by the U.S. On 16 November 2011, the AT-6 was excluded from the LAS program, effectively selecting the Super Tucano. According to GAO: "the Air Force concluded that HBDC had not adequately corrected deficiencies in its proposal… that multiple deficiencies and significant weaknesses found in HBDC's proposal make it technically unacceptable and results in unacceptable mission capability risk". Hawker Beechcraft's protest against its exclusion was dismissed. However, the contract award was disputed and a stop-work was issued in January 2012. For this procurement, the avionics were supplied by Elbit Systems of America. Sierra Nevada, the US-based prime contractor built the Super Tucano in Jacksonville, Florida. The 81st Fighter Squadron, based at Moody Air Force Base, was reactivated on 15 January 2015 and received the A-29 aircraft and provided training to pilots and maintainers from the Afghan Air Force. Purchased for the Afghan Air Force, all 20 aircraft were planned for turn over to the Afghans in batches by December 2018. Until all the A-29s were turned over to the Afghan Air Force, Afghan forces lacked a fixed-wing close air support aircraft, however they had attack helicopters. In August 2017, the Air Force conducted the "Light Attack Experiment" to evaluate potential light attack aircraft. Following this, it decided to continue experimenting with two non-developmental aircraft, the Textron Aviation AT-6B Wolverine derivative of the T-6 Texan II and the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano. Tests were scheduled to be conducted at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona between May and July 2018. The tests are intended "to experiment with maintenance, data networking and sensors… [to] gather the data needed for a rapid procurement", according to Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson. Experimentation will examine logistics requirements, weapons and sensor issues, and future interoperability with partner forces. The Air Force expects to have the information it needs to potentially buy light attack aircraft in a future competition, without conducting a combat demonstration, based on data collected during the first round of the experiment and future data anticipated to be collected in the next phase of experimentation. The A-29 Super Tucano had a fatal crash while over the Red Rio Bombing Range, White Sands Missile Range.