Embraer facing production ‘gap’ at Florida-based A-29 facility

WASHINGTON — Brazil’s Embraer is hunting for new A-29 Super Tucano orders to keep its American final assembly line humming, with 2025 seen as a critical year to parry back a production gap, its defense CEO told Breaking Defense.

Embraer stood up an A-29 final assembly line in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2013 to produce the turboprop plane for the US military and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers, most prominently for Afghan air force pilots trained by US troops. But with US involvement in Afghanistan at an end, production at the facility has slowed to its “minimal pace,” said Bosco da Costa Jr. in a recent interview.

“We are running the facility without big orders coming from FMS,” da Costa told Breaking Defense. “We are facing a gap of production there. We are still fighting for some orders coming from FMS case[s] and even — why not — from the US government.” 

The Jacksonville factory is tooled to produce about 24 Super Tucanos per year, da Costa said, but the company currently only has four A-29s in various stages of production. (A Embraer spokesperson said those planes are “allocated to current and near-term customers,” but declined to name what countries had ordered them.)

Jacksonville could face an uphill battle for orders due to its unique setup. Most orders for the Embraer plane, also known as the EMB 314 Super Tucano, run through the company’s Brazil-based production plant.

But the A-29 variant produced in the United States is assembled by Embraer in Florida, before US prime contractor Sierra Nevada Corp. outfits the baseline aircraft with US-specific mission systems and communications gear in Colorado. That production line caters only to US customers or Foreign Military Sales brokered by the Pentagon, a much slimmer portion of the Super Tucano customer base.

That means that while Embraer has garnered new Super Tucano orders this year from countries such as Paraguay and Uruguay, those contracts cannot be used to pad out a lapse of orders for Jacksonville.

“I think we have 2025 as a year to fix it, trying to find another possibility regarding orders,” da Costa said.  Otherwise, the company will be forced to reevaluate “everything around Jacksonville.”

“The option is to find orders,” he added. “That’s the only option.”

A spokesperson for Sierra Nevada Corp. deferred questions on the Jacksonville plant to Embraer.

“SNC is a proud partner with Embraer providing A-29s and subsequent logistical support worldwide,” the spokesperson said. “SNC is pursuing multiple campaigns with Embraer, and our companies are well-positioned for a number of opportunities with international customers to provide mission-focused and agile A-29 solutions.”

Currently, Embraer sees the US military as a potential customer, with da Costa pointing specifically to the Air Force.

In the late 2010s, the Air Force explored buying light attack aircraft that it could operate in the Middle East as a low-cost alternative to more expensive fighter jets. Although the service bought a handful of A-29s and AT-6 turboprop planes for test purposes, it ultimately scrapped plans to move forward with a full program of record in 2019.

Earlier this month, three of the A-29s purchased as part of that evaluation effort were transferred to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where they will be used as a test platform for sensors and weapons, the Air Force said in a news release.

“We still believe that this platform could serve …  [the] US Air Force, and we are fighting to keep this facility. But again, we are facing problems without orders and without demand,” da Costa said.

Embraer did not deliver any Super Tucanos in 2023, but built about a dozen planes that year — including four in Jacksonville — to be delivered to customers once contracts were signed, Aviation Week reported in February. (Embraer clarified that the four Jacksonville planes mentioned in that report are the ones currently on the production line.)

The company expects to book another two orders for A-29s this year, but da Costa said that both orders are expected to be produced in Brazil.