A TANKER-TRANSPORT CHOSEN WITH THE FIGHTER FLEET IN MIND

Embraer has announced that the Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana has signed a contract for two KC-390 Millennium multi-mission aircraft, in what the company describes as a significant milestone in the modernisation of Colombia’s airlift and aerial refuelling capabilities. The contract includes mission equipment, an integrated services and support package, and a comprehensive offset programme designed to meet Colombia’s regulatory requirements.

The most operationally consequential detail is interoperability. Embraer states the aircraft will feature full connectivity to operate seamlessly alongside Colombia’s recently acquired Gripen fighters. That pairing matters because an air force acquiring a new fighter type acquires with it a tanker requirement: combat radius on paper is a function of internal fuel, but combat radius in practice is a function of refuelling availability. Selecting a tanker-transport that is natively interoperable with the incoming fighter fleet, rather than adapting an existing platform to it, addresses the two capabilities as a single system. The KC-390 can operate both as a tanker and as a receiver when configured with quick-installation air-to-air refuelling equipment.

THE MISSION SET COLOMBIA IS BUYING INTO

The FAC’s fleet will be capable of humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, cargo and troop transport, airdrop operations and air-to-air refuelling. The breadth is relevant to Colombian conditions: a country combining Andean terrain, Amazon basin and two coastlines presents a mix of disaster response, remote logistics and search and rescue demands that a dedicated tanker or a dedicated transport would each serve only partially. The KC-390 carries a 26-tonne payload, flies at 470 knots, and can operate from temporary or unpaved runways — the last of these being the characteristic that determines whether an aircraft can reach an austere strip after a landslide or flood rather than staging to the nearest paved field.

Bosco da Costa Junior, President and Chief Executive of Embraer Defense & Security, said the company was honoured by the FAC’s decision and that it reinforced a partnership spanning more than 35 years, dating to the FAC’s acquisition of its first Embraer aircraft, an EMB-312 Tucano, followed by the A-29 Super Tucano. He said the KC-390 would significantly expand and strengthen Colombia’s airlift and aerial refuelling capabilities.

THIRTEEN COUNTRIES AND A WIDENING BASE

Colombia becomes the thirteenth country to select the KC-390, joining the Brazilian Air Force and the air forces of Portugal, Hungary, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Slovakia and Lithuania. It is the first Latin American operator beyond Brazil, which is significant for the programme’s regional prospects: a reference customer within the region, operating in comparable conditions and under comparable procurement constraints, is a materially different proposition to a European or Asian reference when Embraer approaches other Latin American air forces.

The order follows Embraer’s announcement at Farnborough in July of a Memorandum of Understanding with Anduril to integrate the pallet-launched Barracuda-500M stand-off cruise missile onto the C-390, a development that extends the platform from airlift and refuelling into the generation of kinetic effects while retaining its transport role.