Alenia Aermacchi | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Aermacchi MB-339 |
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Photo: Robert Deering 6/13/2017 USS Intrepid Museum (CV-11) New York City, New York |
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The Aermacchi MB-339 is an
Italian military trainer and
light attack
aircraft. It was developed
as a replacement for the earlier MB-326. The MB-339 is of conventional configuration and all-metal construction, and shares much of the 326's airframe. It has a low, un-swept wing with tip tanks and jet intakes in the roots, tricycle undercarriage, and accommodation for the student and instructor in tandem. The most significant revision was a redesign of the forward fuselage to raise the instructor's seat to allow visibility over and past the student pilot's head. The aircraft was fitted with a larger fin and powerplant for the initial versions was the same Rolls-Royce Viper 632-43, producing 4,000 lbf (17.8 kN), as fitted to the MB-326-K.
The first flight
took place on 12 August 1976 and deliveries
to the Italian
Air Force commenced
in 1979. It
was still in production in 2004 in an
enhanced version with a much-modernised
cockpit. Over 200 MB-339s have been built,
with roughly half of them going to the
Italian Air Force.
The
Lockheed-Aermacchi MB-339 T-Bird II was a
losing contender in the USA's Joint
Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS)
aircraft selection. Among the seven to
enter, the Raytheon/Pilatus entry won, which
became the T-6
Texan II.
According to an
article posted on the Italian website 'Il
Porto Franci', called 'Armi e finanziamenti
nel corno d'Africa', Eritrea paid about $US
50 million for six MB-339 CEs in 1997. This
is the original MB-339 with more advanced
avionics for the ground attack role, RWR,
uprated Viper 680-43
engine, and larger wingtip tanks. It is
capable of carrying Sidewinder AAMs, AGM-65
Maverick AGMs,
and laser-guided
bombs.
Unit price of the MB-339C would have to be
somewhere around $US 8.3 million dollars in
1997. |
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