Brazil Developing Homemade Missile For Gripen NG Fighters

Brazilian Air Force announced last week that it has been developing homemade air-to-air missile, A-Darter by partnering with South Africa's Denel Corp.  

The missile is said to be 90% ready and is expected to be ready for manufacturing in 2016. About US$109.9 million have been invested in this project till now. Brazilian companies Mectron, Avibras and Optoelectronics have already received technology transferred by South Africa’s Denel.

The partnership for the project began in 2006 and the goal is to  produce the missile for future exports. "In the future, sales will be shared. There is already agreement between the companies," explains project manager in Brazil, Brazilian Air Force Colonel Julius Caesar Cardoso Tavares said in a Brazian Air Force press release.

Some technological solutions developed for the A-Darter are available in other products created by domestic industry. For example, programming algorithms of missile systems were developed by a military engineer of FAB.

Colonel Tavares said, “the A-Darter has innovations which only a few countries in the world can master, and that is not transferred when there is a simple purchase of weapons”, he added. It can perform maneuvers that generate up to 100 times the force of gravity (100g). The maximum range is 12 kilometers.

Brazil had bought Gripen NG Fighter from Sweden last year and will manufacture some of them at home with technology from SAAB.