AFA 2025 — Embraer and Sierra Nevada Corp. are eyeing a new mission set for the A-29 Super Tucano, pitching the turboprop as an option for the growing counter-unmanned aerial system (cUAS) market.
The benefit, executives from the two firms told Breaking Defense, comes down to a slower-moving jet with a low cost-per-hour to operate — more in line with the speed and cost of a drone.
“Lots of weapons, long loiter time, cost effective to take care of that drone. You don’t need a bespoke F-35 at eleventy billion dollars an hour, right? You can do this in a very cost effective way,” said Ray Fitzgerald, senior vice president for strategy at SNC.
Embraer Defense’s Chief Commercial Officer, Frederico Lemos, highlighted the kind of package an A-29 can carry as a good match for the cUAS mission, whether kinetic or non-kinetic options.
“Matching speeds, excellent connectivity. You can receive a lot of intel to address the threat with the right type of platform,” he said. “You have the machine gun, cannon, you have the rockets, you have the sensor, the right sensor, you have the communications and networking with A-29.”
Asked whether the companies were pushing the cUAS mission or it was something countries approached them about, Fitzgerald said it was “a little bit of both.”
“We do present it, but a lot of people are calling going, hey, I don’t need to put my F-16 or F-18 up against it, or F-35 God forbid, right,” Fitzgerald said. “The dollars per hour those don’t make sense.”
The two men were talking Monday at the annual Air and Space Forces Associations conference outside Washington. They also announced a new deal where SNC is buying an A-29 from Embraer in advance of an expected Foreign Military Sales case that will be announced in the future.
Getting that plane underway means the customer can get ahead of maintenance, pilot training and systems integration — in what Lemos said could cut the timeline for the future customer down by a full year. The A-29 will be produced at the two firms’ joint facility in Jacksonville, Fla., which has been operating at low production levels in recent years. A year ago, Embraer executives warned Breaking Defense of a looming “production gap” at the plant.
However, this week Lemos said the company is “very positive” about future orders out of Jacksonville.
“We are seeing a strong demand from the market, addressing both past challenges in terms of operations and upcoming challenges,” Lemos said. “We see the counter-UAS kind of mission and how relevant the A-29 can also be for this kind of mission”
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