00:01Hello friends. Between September 8 and 11, at the MSPO Defense Trade Fair in Kielce, Poland,
00:08former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was photographed at the Embraer stand with a model
00:13of the 29 Super Tucano. A few days later, in a meeting between his party's caucus,
00:18European Solidarity, and the new Ukrainian Defense Minister, he announced that he had
00:22reached an agreement with a Brazilian manufacturer to acquire a package of 24 aircraft. They would
00:28be intended to create a force to intercept the new generation of Russian strategic attack drones,
00:33the Geron 4 and 5. Poroshenko added that the purchase would be made through one of the NATO
00:38countries that has contracts with Brazil. In addition, he hoped to have some of the planes
00:43in Ukraine before the end of the year, in time to protect the country's energy infrastructure during
00:47the winter. So far, Embraer has not confirmed the deal and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense
00:53has also not made any public statements. However, the main obstacle to this agreement
00:58is in Brasilia. Ukraine had already shown interest in the Super Tucano during Jair Bolsonaro's
01:05government in 2022 and received a negative response. Lula's administration reaffirmed it
01:11by refusing to reopen the talks in 2023. In fact, since the beginning of the invasion,
01:17Brazil has systematically refused to provide ammunition. It also refused to sell or transfer
01:22the Russian-made helicopters decommissioned by its army and even rejected a request for 450 Guarani
01:28armored vehicles that the government of Kyiv tried to negotiate with Lula. Now, apparently,
01:34the way to move the deal forward would be a sale through a NATO country. It could be Portugal,
01:39which operates a fleet of 12 Super Tucanos in the A-29N version configured according to Atlantic
01:45Alliance standards. The planes were acquired for 200 million euros and Lisbon began receiving them
01:52in December 2025 at the OCMA facilities, the Portuguese aerospace company controlled by Embraer.
01:59There, in addition, a letter of intent was signed to set up a final assembly line for the aircraft in
02:05the country. Brazilian legislation requires explicit authorization from Brasilia to re-export defense
02:11products, and that permission is recorded in the contract. The framework that regulates this is
02:16Decree 9607 from 2018, which does not impose an automatic ban on selling to countries at war.
02:23Therefore, Brazil's current refusal is a political decision and is not based on a legal impediment.
02:28We must consider that Brazil has not joined the sanctions against Moscow, that its agriculture
02:33depends on Russian fertilizers, and that it had Russia as its leading foreign supplier of diesel
02:38until the middle of this year. The timelines also don't seem to be on Ukraine's side, since Portugal,
02:44with a signed contract and no political restrictions, needed a year to receive its first five planes,
02:50and its pilots were only able to receive theoretical training to operate the aircraft in Brazil as late
02:56as February 2026. So thinking that the defenders will be able to get 24 planes and have them operational
03:03before the start of winter is to be generous and overly ambitious goal, even for the competent and
03:08motivated Ukrainian pilots. Having said all this, the news helps us evaluate the capabilities that
03:15Embraer has built into the Super Tucano and how this advanced aircraft could fight to defend Ukrainian
03:20cities from the waves of Gheran drones, Grand Ivan. The A-29 was originally developed as a strike aircraft,
03:29and to provide advanced training to combat pilots.
03:33It's a turboprop powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT-6A with 1,600 horsepower with a maximum speed
03:40close to 590 kilometers per hour hour and a stall speed of just about 80 kilometers per hour hour.
03:46This last feature is precisely the one that Embraer decided to take advantage of in November of 2012.
03:53He announced that he developed a version of a specialised in anti-drone warfare,
03:57which reuses the fuselage and the systems already available,
04:00but adds a software layer that allows it to carry out those missions.
04:04The fundamental elements are
04:06First, the data link thanks to which the aircraft receives from the ground or from airborne early
04:12warning aircraft, the coordinates of enemy drone swarms, in order to head to optimal interception points.
04:18A second element is the L3 Harris-Westcom MX-15D Electro-Optical and Infrared Observation Turret.
04:27It can detect and track moving targets, as well as provide laser illumination to guide BAE
04:33Systems APKWS-2 rockets. These are basically 70 mm Hydra projectiles converted into laser-guided munitions
04:42using a modular kit. Additionally, the aircraft can carry sidewinder air-to-air missiles and two
04:49M3 P-50 caliber machine guns. Since they are internal, they are housed in the wings and leave
04:56the underwing hardpoints free for the Hydra rocket launchers and the missiles. A first-generation Shahed
05:02flies at about 185 kilometers per hour hour that gives F-16 pilots only a few seconds to detect.
05:09In the middle of the night, a target the size of a small car lock onto it with the plane's
05:14targeting
05:14system, fire and maneuver to avoid colliding with the debris from the shoot-down.
05:20The Super Tucano, on the other hand, can slow down, approach a group of drones from behind and
05:25attack several in a single pass in a tactic summed up as get there fast and attack slowly.
05:31There's also an economic rationale behind this. Shooting down drones that cost tens of thousands of
05:36dollars with missiles that cost hundreds of thousands or even a million is an equation
05:40that defenders are forced to accept, but they can't sustain it for much longer.
05:45In March 2026, Embraer added a layer of artificial intelligence through an agreement with the American
05:50company Valkyrie Valkyrieiro to integrate the tactical assistant Ganslinger. This is capable of
05:57processing the aircraft's sensor data to speed up the detection, classification, and prioritization of
06:02threats and to calculate the optimal attack geometry. It leaves only the decision to fire up to the
06:07pilot. In September, it became known that the company is working with an undisclosed country
06:12on a proof-of-concept using A-29 aircraft and real drones as targets. Its purpose is to refine
06:18the operational concepts and the interface between the pilots and the systems. So far, the identity of
06:23that nation has not been disclosed, nor the types of drones used, the weapons employed, or the results,
06:29so the program must be in its early stages of execution. Now, how would Ukraine have to use a
06:34fleet of Super Tucanos? First of all, the planes couldn't just go out on random combat patrols,
06:41flying hundreds of kilometers on their own to see if they find any targets. They would depend on
06:47information from a ground control radar or another external sensor to detect the waves of Geron drones and
06:52position themselves in the path of the Russian raiders. It's about maximizing combat time,
06:58since each plane has to approach the formation, shoot down as many as possible, and once its
07:03ammunition is exhausted, withdraw from the danger zone. That way, other systems in the air defense
07:09network can work against Ivan's vultures without risking shooting down the Super Tucano, which would
07:14be operating low and slow in the same altitude and speed range as the drones it's chasing.
07:21Because of this, Embraer suggests that the A-29 N-phase enemy waves in a band between 80 and 320
07:27kilometers before they reach their target, leaving the inner ring of that zone to ground defenses,
07:33applied to Ukraine. And again, as a hypothetical deployment scenario, this would mean that the
07:39Brazilian planes would have to carry out barrier patrols over the entry corridors of the drones,
07:44well ahead of the Ukrainian cities and energy nodes. That way, each shoot down would occur over open fields
07:50and not over populated areas. As for the jet-powered Geron drones, they fly at around 300 kilometers per
07:57hour, hour which is their cruising speed to save fuel, and 600 kilometers per hour, hour during their
08:02terminal attack run. Compared to these figures, the Super Tucano reaches a maximum speed of 590 kilometers
08:08per hour, hour under ideal conditions, not fully loaded for combat. In combat configuration, according
08:15to Embraer, its speed would drop to between 500 and 520 kilometers per hour. That would still be enough to
08:21follow and hunt down these drones during their cruise flight phase as they enter Ukraine.
08:26The result is that against the Geron 2 drones and Geron 3, Embraer's concept works perfectly,
08:33just as it was designed by approaching from behind and making multiple attack passes. Against the Geron
08:384, it would depend on early warning that allows the planes to position themselves favorably to
08:44intercept the intruders. Against the Geron 5, the drone speed is too high, and chasing from behind is
08:50impossible, so the plane would have to be positioned in advance to carry out a head-on or crossing attack.
08:56In that scenario, the advantage of attacking slowly simply disappears, since the window to illuminate
09:02a target flying at that speed with a laser is very short. Given this, the sensible thing would
09:07be a division of labor where the A-29s act against the slower ones and against the decoys that accompany
09:13them. That would free up the Air Force fighter bombers and the air and ground defense groups to deal with
09:19the faster threats. Embraer has designed the A-29N as a close-air support aircraft for low-threat
09:26scenarios, and I think we can all agree that the sky over the Ukrainian front is anything but that.
09:32Because of that, the aircraft would have to operate from airfields deep inside the country,
09:37outside the range of Russian fighters and long-range anti-aircraft systems,
09:41which limits the area where it can work against drones on their way to their targets.
09:45On the ground, its best defense is its ability to operate from unprepared runways with little support,
09:50which allows it to be dispersed to makeshift sites, away from the bases that Russia regularly attacks.
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10:46And I'll see you next time.
10:46I'll see you next time.
10:46Bye.
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