Brazil

Brief History
Brazil is the largest South American country by far. Every figure on Brazil is impressive: the size (8.456.510 square km), the population (approaching 180 million), the variation in its population (180 indigenous languages), the number of animal species (almost one new primate is found each year) and the many natural resources. A cultural melting pot famous for its Carnival festivities, beaches and vast jungle territory it is a country one should definitely visit.

Now a federal republic, Brazil's modern history starts with the colonial period in the sixteenth century. After initial disinterest from the Portuguese colonisation gradually took shape. The original Indian tribes were enslaved and bandeirantes hunted them down for trade exploring the Amazon basin all the way to the Andes mountain range in the process. Trading Indian slaves and sugar cane were the most important economic exploits in the seventeenth century. In the second halve of the seventeenth century the influx of African slaves replaced many Indian slaves on the plantations. The end of that century is famous for the discovery of gold, triggering a gold-rush in search of El Dorado. The wealth did not stick for long (and only to the happy few) and only left a transfer of the population from the Northeast to the Southeast as a lasting effect.

In the early eighteenth century the Portuguese Prince regent fled form Napoleon's European onslaught thus forming a united kingdom of Brazil and Portugal. His son became regent, crowned himself as Dom Pedro I and declared independence of Portugal in the process. Portugal did not have the resources to regain its former colony and the independent state of Brazil was a fact. His son, Dom Pedro II, had a more lasting influence on Brazil as he abolished slavery and the monarchy encouraged immigration and formed parliamentary institutions. A military coup, backed by the rich owners of coffee plantations, let to his demise and for a couple of decades various presidents ruled Brazil backed by the military. However, an American type constitution was adopted and Brazil floated mainly on the economic influence of the coffee trade. The economic instability of the 1930s dismantled the influence of the coffee traders, but military influence was still abundant. They intervened when Vargas lost the elections in 1930 and installed him as president anyhow.

It took several decades before the military influence was finally subdued in the eighties. A more liberal constitution was made, opposition was allowed to rule and the 1989 elections can be seen as the first truly free nation-wide elections. Collor de Melo won but was forced to resign accused of fraud, Vice-president Itamar Franco taking over in 1992. From the nineties Brazil blossomed, the new president Cardoso introduced a new currency in 1994 and foreign investments towered. Although many health and education programmes were started, the fact remains that poverty was still widespread among the Brazilian population, the next president Luiz 'Lula' da Silva had vowed to take on all these problems and surely made some headway, backed by sound economic growth figures. Having won the bid for the world cup football 2014 and the Olympic games 2016, Brazil will see another spree of investments and modernisation, steaming up to the top-3 of the world's largest economies, the oil revenues are helping a lot too of course. The current president, Dilma Roussef, has started to combat corruption within government and the municipalities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paul are making an effort in the slow but steady development of the large slums, 'favelas'. She has temporarily halted the acquisition programme for the new Air Force fighter aircraft though, as long as there is still poverty it is not wise to buy a very expensive aircraft according to her.

Local Aircraft Type Designations

Brief History
As in many countries it took quite a while for the aviation branch of the army to gain full independence and aircraft of their own. However, army officers were involved in pioneering the military use of aviation assets in Brazil as well. In fact, Lt. Ricardo João Kirk was the first army pilot and was performing reconnaissance missions in 1914. In these early years of aviation, the number of military planes grew (refer to the general history segment above). Eventually, this led to the creation of an Air Force to control all these activities. Subsequently, army as well as navy air assets were amalgamated under the 3rd armed force of the Air Force during 1941.

It took many years before the rebirth of the army took place. In 1985 the army started to study the possibilities of creating a true army aviation branch. This subsequently led to the creation of army aviation on the 3rd of September 1986. Incepted as a helicopter force the plan was to incorporate a flying unit into each army brigade. Taubaté army complex was chosen as the most important and first home of the 1st army aviation battalion (1ºBAvEx, Batalhão de Aviação do Exército) and an aviation material command was created also (DMAvEx, Diretoria de material de Aviação do Exército). The facilities were restructured; hangars, ramps, a runway, a housing area and classrooms were built. Meanwhile the army sought to acquire helicopters and they bought French material that could (in part) be license built by Helibras of Brazil.

The first two types were the AS.350L1 Squirrel dubbed Helicóptero de Ataque (HA-1) and AS565AA Panther named Helicóptero de Manobra (HM-1) in Brazil. The first Squirrel was officially inaugurated during a ceremony on April 21st, 1989 and a long kept army dream came to fruition.

Nowadays, the army is gradually growing to a fully-fledged army air force. Re-organisations took place in 1990 and 1993 and the original 1st battalion was renamed 1º Esquadrão de Aviação de Exército and was reorganised into the 1st group (1º Grupo AvEx) together with newly formed 2nd, 3rd and 4th squadrons. The squadrons no longer solely reside at Taubaté. The 4th squadron is based at Manaus in the Amazon basin and is heavily involved in anti-drug operations, it is the only unit using Black Hawk (HM-2) helicopters. Four were acquired for use in the military monitoring mission on the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border (MOMEP, military observation mission Ecuador-Peru). Early this century, the first Cougars (HM-3) started to arrive and a third base in Southern Brazil, at Campo Grande in the province of Mato Grosso do Sul is being created. Latest acquisition is the super Cougar with the army receiving sixteen of the 50 ordered by the Brazilian ministry of defence. Dubbed HM-4, it will further boost its troop transport capabilities. With that, the Aviação do Exército, or Exército do Brasil (EB) is approaching the 100 helicopter mark.

Brief History
Naval aviation, or Aviação Naval (AvN) as it was known then, in Brazil was in the forefront of development of military aviation. The history of naval aviation is intertwined with that of the army aviation. Both services had an aviation school of their own and existed long before the official inception of the Air Force. The birth of the naval air force as we now know it can be traced back to 1916. The Escola de Aviação Naval - EAvN was created on 23 August 1916 the first official military flying school in Brazil. They started with three Curtiss F flying boats. Army officers were trained there as well in the beginning because they did not have an aviation school of their own yet (refer to the general history segment above). The early years saw use of both flying boats, the Curtiss F and Savoia-Marchetti SM-55s for example, and regular fighter aircraft of that era, like the Boeing 256 delivered in 1932. The AvN even formed an aerial demonstration flight with their 256s.

The navy send some of its aircraft to the border with Bolivia and Paraguay during the 1934 Chaco war. These aircraft, Boeing 256s and Vought V66B Corsairs were used for border patrol duties and this marked the first serious use of the naval air arm. More modern aircraft were incorporated in the late 30s. German built Focke-Wulf FW-44J Stieglitz an FW-58B Weihe aircraft greatly enhanced both the quantity and capabilities of the AvN. By the time the air force was formed in 1941, the naval force had nearly hundred aircraft on strength. The aforementioned Focke-Wulfs constituting the majority of the fleet along with various De Havilland Moth-variants and Wacos, mostly only a few per type.

However, in the sixties the AvN steadily grew into a potent force nonetheless. This next important phase saw the birth of many of the flying units that are still current today. For general purpose HU-1 (1º Esquadrão de Helicópteros de Emprego Geral) was formed in 1961 flying Whirlwind and Widgeon helicopters. Moreover, a training unit (1º Esquadrão de Helicópteros de Instrução - HI-1) was created in 1962 flying Bell 47s. The anti-submarine warfare and attack duties were being carried out by SH-3 Seaking helicopters from the 1º Esquadrão de Helicópteros (HS-1) formed in 1965. The AvN worked in close co-operation with FAB's P-16 (Grumman S-2 Tracker) aircraft. The Trackers were allowed to carry out operations from the aircraft carrier NAeL Minas Gerais without being formally operated by the Marinha! In this phase of the history of AvN a dedicated attack squadron flying the Lynx helicopter (1º Esquadrão de Helicópteros de Ataque - HA-1) was formed as well in 1971.

The present and future
The oddity of not being allowed to operate fixed wing aircraft was finally corrected in 1998. The change being ordered in July 1996 basically opened the way for the navy to operate any aircraft necessary for its duties. Immediately the search was started for a suitable aircraft for the First fighter and attack squadron (1º Esquadrão de Aviões de Interceptação e Ataque - VF-1), already formed on paper in 1965. The aircraft found were a batch of last generation Skyhawks no longer used by the Kuwait Air Force because they just received new F/A-18C/D aircraft. The Kuwaiti Skyhawks generally similar to the US Navy A-4M still had enough flying hours left. The agreement to buy the survivors was met on 30 April 1998 and the aircraft already arrived in Brazil on 7 September of the same year.

Since then the aircraft have been very active in several national and international (combined) exercises (TEMPEREX, ARAEX, URUEX to name a few) aboard the new aircraft carrier NAeL São Paulo commissioned on 15 November 2000. This is the former French carrier Foch. Seeking a patrol aircraft, the Navy recently negotiated a deal to acquire C-1 Trader carrier on board delivery aircraft that are remanufactured into turbo-prop patrol aircraft by Marsh aviotion at Mesa, Arizona. Truly, an exciting prospect. On the helicopter force, the navy alo particpates in the tri-service 50-aircraft EC725 Cougar deal receiving sixteen examples from 2011 onward. Lastly, six SH-60B will join the fleet in the anti-submarine and surveillance role further enhancing the navy's capabilities in the near future.