Brazilian C-390 Millennium's Great Export Attack Surprises its Manufacturer Embraer

Brazil's Embraer C-390 Millennium military transport aircraft, the world's third largest civil aircraft manufacturer, has achieved a tremendous export success.

Embraer, Brazil's proud aviation company, is the world's third largest civil aircraft manufacturer after Boeing and Airbus. In the general classification, that is, in the production of both civil and military aircraft; it is the 9th largest in the world.

Founded in 1969 as an SOE (State Owned Enterprise), the company was fully privatised in 1994, with the Brazilian Government retaining the Golden Share, following the partial privatisation initiated in 1989. After the privatisation, Embraer gained a serious momentum especially in the commercial aviation sector.

After privatisation; Embraer started to allocate its production lines to the production of civil aircraft rather than military vehicles, which constituted the majority of its production in the early period. Soon after, it expanded its civil aircraft production with the production of larger regional aircraft in the 70-110 seat range and smaller business jets.

Known subsidiaries of Embraer; Neiva, Eve Air Mobility, OGMA-Portugal.

Embraer is a well-known aviation company, primarily known for producing regional and executive jets, with high brand value in these categories.

It has built more than 8,000 aircraft from a range of commercial and private jets, including the E-Jet series, Legacy and Phenom series.

What did Embraer aim for with the C-390 Military Transport Aircraft?

The C-390 Millennium is a medium-sized military transport aircraft designed and developed by Brazilian aircraft designer and manufacturer Embraer in the early 2010s. It is the heaviest aircraft produced by Embraer. It made its first flight in 2015 and entered service with the Brazilian Air Force in 2019.

The C-390 was designed as a turbofan-engined, fast, practical, multi-role (military transport, aerial refuelling, fighting forest fires, responding to natural disasters, etc.) military transport aircraft.

The Embraer C-390 Millennium offers a higher payload capacity (26,000 kg) than other medium military transport aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin C-130 (19,090 kg) and Antonov An-178 (18,000 kg).

The need for an effective military transport aircraft was very high in Brazil, which is located in a very large geographical area, mostly consisting of tropical forests and rivers with low human density.

The C-390, which has automatic cargo unloading capability in low and high altitude missions, takes less than 3 hours to prepare from one mission configuration to another mission configuration, and offers cost-effective solutions in multi-mission requirements, can be very effective in Brazil and similar geographies.

Initially, the first and only customer was the Brazilian Air Force, but during the design, prototype production, testing and development phases of these prototypes, interest in the C-390 gradually increased, especially from C-130 user countries. In line with this interest, the C-390 was marketed as an alternative to the Lockheed Martin C-130 with 4 turboprop engines and 2 turbofan engines.

What did Embraer achieve with the C-390 Millennium?

Embraer carried out the C-390 programme together with various other aviation companies such as FAdeA, ENAER, OGMA. Major subcontractors in the production of the aircraft include Aero Vodochody, BAE Systems and Rockwell Collins.

Embraer has created and implemented very well the co-operation to integrate multiple technologies into the C-390. Embraer reflected its design and manufacturing experience in civil medium fuselage aircraft to the design and manufacturing process of the C-390 very well. The brand value created in civil aircraft was also reflected to the C-390. The company focused not only on the military variant of the aircraft, but also on the civilian variant.

The C-390's high rates of combat readiness, improved mission success, suitability for multiple missions, readiness for short-term mission changes between missions, short troubleshooting and maintenance times, and high level of activity make it attractive to potential customers.

The C-390's tremendous sales and export success is impressive.

Current Users:

Brazil; 19 aircraft to be purchased, 6 delivered.

Portugal; 6 aircraft to be purchased, 2 delivered.

Future Users Placing Orders:

Austria; 4 aircraft ordered.

Czech Republic; 2 aircraft ordered

Hungary; 2 aircraft ordered

Netherlands; 5 aircraft ordered.

South Korea; 3 aircraft ordered

Potential Users:

Angola; (5 C-390)

Colombia; (12 C-390)

Egypt; (16 C-390)

Greece; (6 C-390)

India; (40 C-390)

Rwanda; (2 C-390)

South Africa; (6 C-390)

Sweden; (6 C-390)

Morocco; (6 C-390)

In addition, British BAE Systems has signed an agreement with Embraer to market the C-390 to Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

A Civil Cargo transport variant of the C-390 will also be produced.

Embraer will build a civil cargo aircraft variant of the C-390 for the Brazilian postal company Correios. It is thought that the use here will increase the market for the civil cargo variant of the C-390.