Guatemala is
buying six Brazilian A-29 Super Tucano aircraft for their air force. The
Super Tucano is a single engine turbo-prop trainer/attack aircraft that
is used by over a dozen nations. This aircraft carries two internal
12.7mm (.50 caliber) machine-guns and can carry up to 1.5 tons of bombs
and rockets. It can stay in the air for 6.5 hours at a time. It is
rugged, easy to maintain, and cheap. You pay $15-20 million for each
Super Tucano, depending on how much training, spare parts and support
equipment you get with them.
This aircraft can be equipped to carry over a half dozen of
the 250 pound GPS smart bombs (or half a dozen dumb 500 pound bombs),
giving it considerable potential firepower if rigged to handle smart
bombs. The Super Tucano comes equipped with a GPS guidance system. Max
altitude is 11,300 meters (35,000 feet) and cruising speed is 400
kilometers an hour. Naturally, this aircraft can move in lower and
slower than any jet can. The Super Tucano is also equipped with armor
for the pilot, a pressurized cockpit, and an ejection seat. Not bad for
an aircraft with a max takeoff weight of 5.4 tons.
The Super Tucano can double as trainers. It's easier to train
pilots to use the Super Tucano, cheaper to buy them, and much cheaper to
operate them. It costs less than a tenth as much per flying hour to
operate a Super Tucano compared to a F-16.
Guatemala is the sixth South Latin American customer for the
Super Tucano joining Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, and
Ecuador. Twelve countries (including Afghanistan, Angola, Burkina Fasso,
Indonesia, Mauritius and Senegal) have bought Super Tucano, which has
become the world’s leading counter-insurgency aircraft. Guatemala will
use it to help control the growing problem with drug smugglers moving
cocaine to North America.
These "trainer/light attack aircraft" can also operate from
crude airports, or even a stretch of highway. Aircraft like this can
carry systems to defeat portable surface to air missiles. They can carry
smart bombs as well.
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