The A 29 Super Tucano How a Propeller Plane Became a 21st Century War Machine

in Modern Warfare Aira is everything and when the nations of the world send flying machines to face armies on the ground the results are often devastating the American A1 can annihilate all that stands in its way nearly impervious to the beating it will certainly take in return return the Soviet made su2 can lay waste enemy columns as its pilot sit safe and sound behind the stick the Jaguar the gibli the golden eagle and more they all fill the ranks of global Air Forces dropping bombs firing Precision strikes and carving Canyons of cannon fire against all

who DARE stand oppose they are raw power rumbling through the skies in a brutal show of force precisely as their makers intended but raw power isn't always the answer and a thundering attack Jed formidable as it may be isn't always the right tool for the job believe it or not the plane that serves as the global standard of ground attack aircraft in the 21st century isn't even on that list and in fact it doesn't even look like it's from this Century at all meet the a29 super Tano a propeller-driven Prof Sly subsonic underwhelming little piece

of Kit with the potential to kick your ass like it's nobody's [Music] business now before we tell the story of how the a29 super Tano came to be we're going to start by explaining something equally important why it works it's well claim that we just made a second ago that this humble little propeller plane sets a gold standard that the the frogfoot the jaguar and more all try to match but as counterintuitive as it may be the nature of 21st century Warfare has made it so see all those big scary attack Jets were built with

one major role in mind to oppose the military forces of a rival major power the Americans built the war toog with the intention of devastating Soviet arbit troop columns as they marched across the Iron Curtain into Western Europe in an attack that never came the Soviets built the Frog foot with the inent of doing the same thing to the Americans and the Europeans in an attack that never came and while it's not unheard of in the modern era for rival militaries to Clash on the grounds in the great tank and artillery battles that these attack

Jets Were Meant to disrupt it's intirely not a common occurrence the nature of 21st century Warfare at least to this point at around the quarter Mark of the 21st century has borne little resemblance to what the aircraft designers and strategists of the Cold War expected instead if looks a whole lot more like what America and NATO experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan what both NATO and Russia experienced in Syria and what other world Nations have experienced in the Colombian rainforests the scrublands of the sahal the mountains of the caucuses and a whole lot more it's bloody

unpredictable asymmetric Warfare where Modern Air Forces aren't going to dog fight with skilled adversary pilots in midair but instead wage a sustained campaign against insurgencies on the ground and in a conflict like that the problem isn't just that these powerful attack aircraft are Overkill is that they provide a sledgehammer to a problem that is better suited to be dealt with by a screwdriver back in the 1990s the Brazilian Aerospace and defense Corporation in Brea were looking to build an attack aircraft of its own in those days the embra brass didn't yet understand the problem the

world's military Powers didn't know they had but they did know from firsthand experience that not every nation that face security threads would be able to invest in those sorts of warplanes since 1980 imra had been manufacturing a plane called the Tano a combination trainer and light attack aircraft that was durable capable of carrying significant ordinance despite its single turbo prop design and capable of flying at long ranges while mounting all sorts of weapon systems the Tano was a Smash Hit with the militaries of the world particularly those that couldn't afford more advanced attack aircraft and

it would serve in South America with Brazil Colombia Venezuela Peru and More in Africa with Egypt Angola Kenya and others and in the Middle East with Iraq Iran in ku8 the French and the British C picked up about 200 tanos between the two of them and Britain went a step further with Northern Ireland's short Brothers Aerospace company securing a license to produce the Tano in house very quickly the Tano became the go-to aircraft for basic Flight Training and many of the Nations who purchased them would send very favorable reports on how the Tano had dealt

with local insurgencies and rebel movements so with a resounding success of the Tano embraer's engineers and Executives back in Sal poo understood the that they had a real prospect on their hands but choosing where to take the aircraft next would prove to be a difficult process at first imraa invested in an updated Tano design that never came to fruition then they looked at building a helicopter killer design explicitly built to hunt down the attack helicopters that many smaller Regional militaries will face as their biggest threat if they go to war with a similarly small nebor

military a handful of mismatched prototypes were constructed but none were ever chosen to extend into production in until ima's own home government came to the company with a bit of a request you see around this time Brazil had a border issue and more precisely it had an issue with the poorest nature of the Amazon rainforest the outer fringes of Brazil's West were so hard to patrol that illegal flights mostly involved with regional drug trade could come and go in and out of Brazil with hardly any issues Brazil had come to imraa hoping that they could

build a plane suitable for Border intercepts and Patrol and the Brazilian Air Force would also quickly chime in saying that the country could really use a new Advanced military trainer to replace an aging model Brazil was relying on the aircraft Brazil was asking for was already imagined quite concretely before imraa got its say Brazil was looking for a plane engineered specifically to deal with the conditions of the Amazon it should be able to withstand high temperatures suffocatingly high humidity and torrential rainfall it should also be a turbo prop plane rather than a jet and it

should be able to operate in challenging environments relying on short airfields where there would be little to no infrastructure and minimal support for long periods of time it was intended to operate in both daytime and nighttime conditions featuring a long range and it should be Hardy reliable and well-armed enough to operate autonomously for extended periods of time finally while it was meant to be rugged and survivable it didn't have to be able to say land with a wing and engine half the landing gear and parts of its metal skin ripped off like America's A10 could

this was to be an aircraft that would never have to withstand a direct shot from a tank or a barrage of dedicated anti-aircraft fire but was instead meant to operate against adversaries who were equipped with small arms shoulder fired weapons and not a whole lot else imra would receed the equivalent of $50 million to build the aircraft relying on its Tano model as a basea and the Brazilian government had both agreed that the Tano was a suitable foundation for this new plane fulls scale design and development would kick off in 1995 two modified old tanos

would make their first flights in 1996 and 1997 and a production ready version of the new plane would take its madeen flight in 1999 imraa would give its new plane Superior engines a far better airframe better exterior armor a wider range of onboard weapons and advanced comps data links and avionics all benefiting a plane prepared for the 21st century at the time production was set to begin ima's changes were so wide ranging and extreme that they' functionally made a new aircraft and when it came time to pick a name the answer is obvious the plan's

predecessor was the danan but this new bird was better in just about every way so it was dubbed the super Tano and starting in the year 2003 it got straight to work the umbrea a29 super Tano also designated the ax or the EMB 314 is a two-seater aircraft with a pilot seat up front and a rear seat that can ultimately be designed for a navigator in attack en counter Insurgency aircraft or for a flight instructor in the trainer model from its nose prop at the front to its Rudder at the back the super Deano measures

11.38 M or 37t 4 in with a wingspan giving it a nearly Square profile at 11.14 4 M or 36' 7 in sitting empty the suana clocks in at 3200 kg or a bit over £7,000 barely more than a third of the weight of the world's most common fighter jet the F-16 a takeoff the plane could fly at weights up to 5400 kg or nearly 12,000 lb it's powered by a PR and Whitney turbo prop engine producing 1,600 horsepower and driving a five-bladed fully Feathering propeller of a diameter of 2.4 M or about 8 ft

that propeller is designed to be quiet at high altitudes allowing the super toar to loiter as a little pin prick in the sky while doing reconnaissance unlikely to catch the attention of an adversary on the ground the super Tano's propeller driven design ensures that it will never cross the sound barrier under its own power it can manage impressive speeds for an aircraft of its type hting a top speed of 590 km an hour or 370 mph its cruising speed isn't far off at 520 km/ hour or 320 mph but for reasons that we'll get into

later its stall speed is one of its most impressive features the plane doesn't stall out until slowing down to speeds of 148 km an hour or just 92 mph a similar speed to what a driver could achieve on the most permissive Global freeways on patrol or on Long flying training missions it boasts a range of 1,330 KM or 830 Mi giving it over 5 hours in the air before returning to base while in combat with a heavy weapons load its range is closer to 550 km or 340 Mi the aircraft can manage over 8 hours

of endurance in a single flight that could it altitudes comparable with commercial Jets at just over 10,000 M or about 35,000 ft and in the event that the super Tano is fitted out for combat rather than training it's the sort of aircraft that you absolutely do not want to run into for the super Toano versatility is the name of the game and the combinations of kits that it can carry are seriously impressive in addition to two internal machine guns one per Wing the plane can carry up to five additional machine gun or Cannon pods under

the wings and fuselage depending on the setup and the specific pods in use on those same five pylons the super Toano can mount ungard bombs and Rocket pods including several different rocket options and incendi and cluster bombs alternately it can carry several air-to-air missiles including the time tested Sidewinder or air to ground missiles it's capable of mounting several different sorts of laser and GPS guided bombs and if needed it can carry PODS of flares and shaft special sensor pods or drop tanks to extend its range under the hood the super Tano brings some serious technology

to Bear starting with several computerized attack assets including but not limited to systems to Aid with so-called to C bombing where an aircraft pulls up while dropping its bomb and gives that bomb a longer time in flight and Optical reflex sites that superimpose markers around a track Target in Flight sort of like a bullseye the aircraft's onboard systems can predict and show the pilot a point of impact for the bombs it drops and it also provides full heads up display they're also equipped with onboard data hubs and encrypted data links and they carry onboard GPS

systems helmet mounted displays for the pilots Onboard video cameras Airborne weather projection systems Wi-Fi integration for certain smart bombs electronic trainer systems and somehow even more beyond that the planes onboard systems allow for detailed Mission planning while in flight they boast infrared systems they can warn the pilot about approaching missiles like a sophisticated fighter jet good and in perhaps a more analog feature it can also survive a bird beaning itself onto the glass cockpit at several hundred km per hour it's sophisticated onboard technology it's highly varied weapons selection and its payload capacity and range mean

that the super Tano only explicitly loses out to advance and attack jets in a few areas its cruising speed is almost directly comparable to the American A10 or the Russian su2 it can mount many of the same weapons and it does better in auster environments as we'll discuss in just a moment but the super Deano's proponents will also suggest that in certain situations the super Tano is simply better for the Air Attack job than any of the Jets that would seem at least outwardly a like more capable aircraft to understand why we've got to think

about what the close airport role actually demands of aircraft on the one hand the aircraft should be able to mount longer range weapons like air to ground missiles that can fire from a few kilometers or a few tens of kilometers out both the super Toano and the modern jets can do that just fine but on the other hand they've also got to be able to get up close in person or with enemy ground forces and it's there that the super Tano excels for an aircraft in that role a few critical characteristics matter and they're almost

the opposite of what you'd expect Air Forces to want from a highly sophisticated war plane how slow unstable can an attack aircraft fly without falling out of the sky how maneuverable is it at low altitudes and how fast can it turn around for multiple attack runs when it comes to damage the question isn't whether it can avoid being hit its operators know full well it's going to get it the question is how much punishment can it take and still keep flying and how much work after the fact will it take to make the thing air

worthy again in all of those metrics the super Toano truly excels above its shinier flashier peers playing could fly very low and very slow strafing ground targets with its gunpods or rockets and dropping bombs with greater Precision than it would while flying at high speeds it can use its onboard Tech to achieve the same level of operator awareness as the pilots of those other aircraft would and it's much more maneuverable at low speeds where it can handle the energy losses involved with turns and sudden climbs in that low and slow environment more competently than a

jet could it can turn to take subsequent attack passes significantly faster and while again it isn't meant to stand stand up to direct tank or anti-aircraft weapon fire it's also not meant to it's built for engagements with insurgencies Rebel groups drug smugglers Terror organizations and other asymmetric threats the same threats that the frogfoot jaguar and more have found themselves facing but were never really built for and Beyond its advantages over more advanced jet attack aircraft super Tano offers something that may seem counterintuitive for those living under the aaces of North American European East Asian or

the more advanced ex Soviet militaries but that happen to be particularly important for just about everybody else that would be the Super tanos autonomy its capability to operate without dedicated maintenance facilities tanker refueling realtime command and control instruction or even accompanying aircraft to back it up in its Border Protection role for Brazil for example the super Toano Works in tandem with a modified Regional Jet mounted with an onboard early warning sensor that can detect planes coming across the border but once the jet spots those planes the super Tano is basically on its own to depart

from its tiny local Air strip conduct an interception and return safely said one imraa strategist about the platform back in the early 2000s quote above all the aircraft has to be autonomous there is no infrastructure out there and once you are in the middle of the Amazon you are on your own but as valuable as the super Tano is to have in the Amazon it's also built to last in a range of other environments from heavy jungles to open deserts to hilly Badlands and more the super Tano can go where more sophisticated ated jet aircraft

simply couldn't those more sophisticated aircraft might be a good bit more capable on paper but they've also got to be baby in a way between the long perfectly level manicured runways they expect to take off and land from their many maintenance hours required per flight hour and a whole lot more behind the Stick of the super Tano if you can see a strip of relatively flat land you can probably land on it and most of the maintenance required to keep it airworthy can be done with a few wrenches a couple of pairs of hands and

a big box of spare parts dropped off when the plane was sent to a rugged air strip and as a trainer aircraft it's earned rave reviews from traines and fright instructors alike its versatility and high performance potential makes it an Ideal tool to prep Pilots for a range of mission roles and to Baby new recruits when necessary or push Advanced trainees when they're ready to have some fun they're able to handle and accommodate errors in Flight easily recoverable from stalls or from unexpected bad Maneuvers and their lows speed potential is unusually forgiving in a plane

that can also go much faster as needed they're easily used for Long training missions they're easily turned around to work with multiple flight instructors across multiple shifts and trainees over the course of a day and they're just as helpful in training ground controllers to call for and coordinate attack [Music] runs with the versatility the PA and the true multi-roll capabilities of the super Tano it should be no surprise that the aircraft is a favorite of any global Military that can afford it in addition to the hundred aircraft in service to Brazil they're popular in Latin

America operated by Chile Colombia Ecuador and Honduras the Philippines use them Nigeria uses them Indonesia uses them and so do Lebanon morania bikina Faso turkistan Ghana and a lot of others Taliban even as a couple of dozen captured after the fall of cabal from the previous Afghan governments nations from Peru to Portugal to Thailand to Ukraine have explored picking up some superanos and other nations from Venezuela to Iraq to El Salvador and Sweden have thought long and hard about getting some for themselves before ultimately deciding not to do so for reasons that only rarely to

do with concerns about performance or capability even the United States now flies several super tanos Under the Umbrella of its Special Operations commands making it the only fully non-us designed aircraft to serve in a direct combat role across the entire US military and for those of you keeping scor at home yes we're counting the Harrier the US played a major role in its design for the record although the US didn't help design the super Tano it does now build some of them under license via the Sierra Nevada Corporation in combat the super Tano has proved

its worth again and again whenever it's had the opportunity Brazil's Frontier Patrol program known as SYM has employed the super Tano since it went into service and has used the aircraft to conduct several successful air interceptions but more broadly its mere presence has led to far fewer attempts at aerial water Crossings it was used in crackdowns on drug trafficking organizations and illegal mining syndicates bombing air strips intercepting dozens of aircrafts and leading to immense seizures of drugs and weapons in Colombia the super Toano has gotten a far tougher work out over the years starting in

2007 when a super Tano Squadron became the first ever of the aircraft to take part in a combat mission in that mission and many Mission since the superado used its sophisticated targeting system to drop bombs with high Precision against the Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia better known as farc and other Associated Rebel groups in one attack in 2010 25 super tanos dropped seven tons of Munitions onto a farc camp during a massive Special Forces rate at other attacks would see super Tano squadrons lay waste to a wide range of f targets as one of if

not the most effective Tools in Colombia's entire counterinsurgency Arsenal one super Tano would go down in Colombia during the aircraft service purportedly shot down by a 50 caliber machine gun though Colombia disputes this claim in exchange super tanos would farx military and economic potential driving the collection of insurgent groups toward conditions that would eventually lead to a 2016 peace settlement elsewhere around the world the super Toano is proven critical for the Dominican Republic in its efforts to deter ha and international drug trafficing from entering Dominican airspace in Indonesia they've helped to quell unrest in several

rest of areas although a crash between two of the aircraft would kill all four operators in East Java in the sahal nations of bikina Faso Marley and morania they played a role in combating a range of islamist insurgencies and in Nigeria they've been part of the effort to chase down the Dera group boo Haram in Philippines they've carried out air strikes on Islamic State Fighters and other Terror groups while in Afghanistan they were used in efforts to fight back against the Taliban until Taliban victory in 2021 and while the true extent of their combat use

has almost certainly been kept partially Secret by World Nations their use in a range of countries with ongoing insurgencies and porous borders would suggest that they're probably in frequent use in many rugged environments as of now the next step for the tuano is likely to be the a29 N A NATO ready variant of the aircraft that imer is working hard to complete as usual with the Tano line imraa is looking to create a precise solution to a precise problem integrating solid Tech and fighting capabilities to be sure but integrating the ones that the situation calls

for rather than those that will look best on paper in this instance imraa is looking to be in the right place at the right time for what's expected to be a large scale rearmament of NATO Nations after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine the NATO variant super Tano is expected to integrate NATO standard data links and a suite of other equipment that treaty member militaries are expected to have it'll also come equipped with a suite of new training tools including virtual reality and mixed reality equipment to bring new pilots up to speed because of its low

endurance and its likely inability to stand up to Russian tanks it's not going to be the only ground attack aircraft in NATO's Arsenal but when paired with Advanced multi-war Fighters like the F35 F-16 Raphael and typhoon plus strategic bomber assets it becomes a specialized tool that can be used to great effect in the right moments NATO will be receiving appr proven aircraft as of now the global super Toano fleet has logged well over half a million flight hours across just 260 aircraft including more than 60,000 combat hours with just one super Tano being shot down

during a combat Mission it's done all of that while fitting budget constraints of less well-off Nations serving as a trainer an armed reconnaissance platform a border patrol aircraft and an attack plane all at once in a world where fifth generation Fighters near invisible bombers and sophisticated autonomous drones get all the headlines it's the super Tano that was made to do the Dirty Work and as the world is quickly realizing the super Tano does that dirty work better than just about anything else [Music]