U.S. Air Force buys 20 propeller-driven attack planes

The U.S. Air Force just bought its first propeller-driven attack airplanes in decades. The air service just gave Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) a $427 million contract for 20 Embraer A-29 Super Tucano light attack planes. SNC will build the Brazilian-designed planes in Florida. Why on Earth is the Air Force buying planes that strongly resemble ...

Embraer
Embraer
Embraer

The U.S. Air Force just bought its first propeller-driven attack airplanes in decades.

The U.S. Air Force just bought its first propeller-driven attack airplanes in decades.

The air service just gave Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) a $427 million contract for 20 Embraer A-29 Super Tucano light attack planes. SNC will build the Brazilian-designed planes in Florida. Why on Earth is the Air Force buying planes that strongly resemble World War II fighters equipped with modern bombs and cockpit displays? Because it plans on turning them over to the nascent Afghan air force to fight the Taliban.

The logic goes like this: the Afghans don’t need and certainly can’t afford to buy, operate, and maintain modern jet fighters (some of which burn more fuel on takeoff than the Super Tucano would use in an hour). Instead, the Afghan military needs a simple, rugged plane that can carry lots of bullets and bombs and stay over targets for long periods of time.

The Super Tucano is designed for exactly that type of mission. It’s a so-called COIN (counterinsurgency) plane, and they are used by air forces around the world to do everything from hunting drug smugglers (in Brazil) to combating insurgencies (Colombia).  The U.S. Navy tested out a leased Super Tucano in Afghanistan in 2009, flying close air support missions for SEAL teams under a program called Imminent Fury.  (Two years ago this month, Embraer flew yours truly to their facilities in Brazil to see the Super T production line and fly the simulator.)

The U.S. efforts to purchase a prop-driven plane go back about five years. Some in the Air Force wanted to buy a fleet of such planes to provide close air support to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They would have been better suited to such work than the service’s aging fleet of fast jets, which were designed to kill Soviet MiGs not strafe insurgents and which cost a fortune for every hour they fly.

However, a number of factors including budget fights and congressional opposition got in the way until the service decided that it would only field a handful of planes and turn them over to the Afghans. Finally, in late 2011, the service gave SNC a contract for 20 planes. That was quickly overturned after rival Hawker Beechcraft protested the contract award. Since then, Hawker Beechcraft has gone bankrupt and, well, you see what’s happened.

John Reed is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy. He comes to FP after editing Military.com’s publication Defense Tech and working as the associate editor of DoDBuzz. Between 2007 and 2010, he covered major trends in military aviation and the defense industry around the world for Defense News and Inside the Air Force. Before moving to Washington in August 2007, Reed worked in corporate sales and business development for a Swedish IT firm, The Meltwater Group in Mountain View CA, and Philadelphia, PA. Prior to that, he worked as a reporter at the Tracy Press and the Scotts Valley Press-Banner newspapers in California. His first story as a professional reporter involved chasing escaped emus around California’s central valley with Mexican cowboys armed with lassos and local police armed with shotguns. Luckily for the giant birds, the cowboys caught them first and the emus were ok. A New England native, Reed graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a dual degree in international affairs and history.

More from Foreign Policy

Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.
Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.

Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes

A wave of fresh humiliations has the Kremlin struggling to control the narrative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance

De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat

Is Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Factual or Farcical?

A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.

An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.
An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.

The Battle for Eurasia

China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.