South Korea's defense procurement department, DAPA, has chosen the Embraer KC-390 military transport aircraft for a procurement contract worth a total of EUR 500 million.
The agreement was signed and announced on December 4th, the number of aircraft in question or delivery deadlines are not disclosed. In addition to the jets, Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace corporation, will provide maintenance at South Korean local facilities, Opex360 reports.
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Seoul decided to order Brazilian KC-390s to replace the twelve aging C-130H aircraft, the backbone of Korean military transport aviation.
It turns out that the Koreans also considered either buying new C-130s from the United States or switching over to the fleet with A400M transporters from European Airbus.
Moreover, Seoul was leaning towards purchasing the A400M, since the country has experience of close cooperation with Airbus. The South Korean military commended the performance of A400M aircraft during missions in Afghanistan.
Korea even went out of its way to speed up the acquisition in April 2022, by offering Spain a certain number of FA-50 trainer aircraft in exchange for six A400Ms.
Why, in the end, South Korea gave up on transport jets from Airbus, only to buy Brazilian KC-390 instead is an open question yet. Maybe the negotiators from Brazilian Embraer turned out to have better communication skills.
Earlier Defense Express reported that Brazil brushed off a potential huge deal on the supply of 450 Guarani armored vehicles to Ukraine. Meanwhile, russia is hoping to scrap up some helicopter engines around the world and is seeking to buy 12 from Brazil.
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