FARNBOROUGH — Brazilian giant Embraer has signed an agreement with US firm Anduril to pursue a palletized weapons program on its C-390 Millenium aircraft, the company announced today.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding, the firms will pursue integrating Anduril’s palletized Baracuda-500M cruise missile onto the Millenium, the first time an offensive capability would be put on the C-390 design.
“We are receiving this demand from several countries around the globe,” Embraer defense boss Bosco da Costa Jr. said during a company presentation at the Farnborough Airshow. While he declined to identify those countries, Costa said the interest was from customers in “Europe, in Asia as well.”
He also declined to give a timeline for when a test might happen of the technology, but said Anduril’s “very efficient, very flexible” methods mean Embraer believes it can be done “very fast.”
“Integrating the pallet-launched Barracuda-500M with Embraer’s C-390 Millennium gives allied militaries a new way to generate massed, stand-off effects from a proven airlift platform,” Greg Kausner, senior vice president for global defense at Anduril, said in a statement. “Anduril’s Barracuda family of systems delivers rapidly producible, operationally relevant capabilities to meet the growing demand for affordable, scalable munitions.”
The C-390 is currently operational with Brazil, Portugal, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Austria, Uzbekistan, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Slovakia, and Lithuania have all ordered the plane as well.
Costa said today that Embraer expects to deliver the first two C-390s for the United Arab Emirates by 2028, roughly two years after signing. During the first day of the show, Embraer also announced two deals for C-390 training systems for Sweden and Austria.
Embraer is also expanding its production of the Saab Gripen at its Brazilian facility, moving from 16 in planned production to 36. All those additional jets are for “international customers,” not Brazil, according to Costa. He also announced planned improvements to the A-29, with “fifth-generation avionics,” new datalinks and a focus on the cUAS mission that was first rolled out in the fall.
Finally, Costa declined to give a timeline for when a test of a Northrop-designed boom for the KC-390 might be tested. The two companies teamed in February of this year, targeting the US Air Force.
