FAdeA is expected to produce an initial batch of 18 of the new aircraft. The company hopes to build a total of 100 Pampa IIIs for Argentina and export customers. Some of those will be configured as an attack variant.
The Pampa III is designed to avoid the use of any British-built components and this has included replacing the type's Martin-Baker Mk10 ejection seat with a Russian model.
While UK companies are being excluded because of a political dispute over the ownership of the Falkland Islands, foreign companies such as Israel Aerospace Industries, Elta Systems, Rockwell Collins, Liebherr and Sagem are supplying components for the Pampa III.
The Pampa III is expected to make its first flight in December 2013.
The Pampa III is the third iteration of the venerable trainer that was originally designed with assistance from the now-defunct German airframer Dornier Flugzeugwerke. Eighteen examples of the original design were built for the Argentinian air force in the late 1980s, while a second batch of modernised Pampa IIs was built in 2006.
flightglobal
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