President Lee's Chosen Brazilian Transport Aircraft: First Unit Arriving This Year

First of Three Brazilian C-390 Aircraft Delivered

After completing his visit to San Francisco, United States, President Lee Jaemyung headed to South America. On his first stop, President Lee visited the capital city of Brazil, Brasília, on the 26th (local time) and inspected the Brazilian-made large transport aircraft, the C-390. This is unusual, as presidents typically get into their vehicles immediately following the official welcoming ceremony during overseas visits.

Brazilian Embraer's C-390 model

The C-390 transport aircraft, as President Lee emphasized, stands as a symbol of defense cooperation between Korea and Brazil. In December 2023, the government selected Embraer’s C-390 model for the Air Force’s second large transport aircraft procurement program, in which 710 billion won was allocated to acquire three new transport planes. Initially, it was expected to be a direct contest between the C-130J from Lockheed Martin of the United States and the A400M from Europe’s Airbus. However, the Brazilian Embraer C-390 ultimately made a come-from-behind win. This project aimed to secure additional large transport aircraft for the Air Force—both in peacetime and wartime—by purchasing them from overseas. In the previous phase, Lockheed Martin’s C-130J had been selected, resulting in the Air Force currently operating four of these aircraft, but they are now aging.

The decision to choose the Brazilian transport aircraft was met with a great deal of opposition. The Embraer C-390 is a model that successfully completed its maiden flight in 2015 and is currently operated by Brazil’s Air Force with five units. Beyond Hungary and Portugal, export contracts have also been signed for five units with the Netherlands and four with Austria. Since only a small number of countries operate the aircraft, and its follow-up logistics support and large-scale transport capabilities remain unclear, the C-390 was often opposed by even the Air Force itself.

The primary reason the Korean military chose the Brazilian transport aircraft despite such opposition was that Embraer received a high evaluation in the domestic industry cooperation consortium category, one of five assessment items—performance, operational suitability, price, offset trade, and domestic corporate cooperation. The offset trade strategy involved forming consortia in which Korean small and medium-sized enterprises would participate in producing key components such as the rear fuselage.

At the time, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration did not disclose detailed evaluation scores. However, a DAPA official explained, "Embraer offered offset trade valued at 135 million dollars and proposed a consortium with three domestic partners, surpassing Lockheed Martin's offset trade value of 129 million dollars and only one domestic partner."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.