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PARIS — Embraer hopes to benefit from changes in the U.S. Air Force’s evaluation in an upcoming tender for 20 light attack aircraft, said Chief Executive Luiz Carlos Aguiar of the company’s defense and security business unit.
The Brazilian company will resubmit its Super Tucano light attack/trainer plane in a new Air Force competition to equip the Afghan military. The new evaluation process allocates more points to aircraft deemed fit for counterinsurgency rather than the basic trainer mission, Aguiar told journalists here.
“This will benefit us,” he said.
Another change in the evaluation method is the absence of a fly-off between competing aircraft, he said. Data from the fly-off demonstration under the previous Air Force tender will be excluded from the evaluation, he said.
The requirements remain the same as those set in the previous competition, he said.
The U.S. service March 2 canceled a pick of the Super Tucano, a single-engine turboprop, after a legal challenge from Wichita, Kan.-based Hawker Beechcraft, maker of the rival AT-6 aircraft.
The Air Force documentation supporting the award decision was considered to be inadequate in the earlier tender, forcing the selection to be set aside.
Embraer partnered with Sierra Nevada, Arlington, Va., to bid for the previous $355 million contract, in which the Air Force was acquiring aircraft for the Afghan authorities.
