Current and Finished Projects > Stories
Jackrabbit
upnorth:
July 15, 1963: Cartierville Airport, Quebec, Canada
Four MB-326s, two company demonstrators and two RCAF examples lifted off from the Cartierville runway on their way to Central and South America. Shortly after take off, they were joined by a support aircraft in the form of an RCAF C-130 Hercules.
In response to Paul Hellyer's overt dislike of the MB-326 from the start, a sales tour was deemed essential by both Canadair and Aermacchi. Securing export customers for the Canadair built version of the aircraft would make it more difficult for the minister to undermine the aircraft in the face of foreign revenue generated by it.
A former Canadair marketing executive:
"It wasn't enough that we were building the MB-326 for the RCAF, we needed export customers for it. It was the plan from the start that Canadair would be the primary provider of the aircraft to the Americas, but it took on a new level of urgency with Paul Hellyer in place as the Defense Minister. Export orders would be some level of insurance against him simply trying to cancel it.
Our target market was anyone using the Lockheed T-33, as the MB-326 could act as a more modern replacement; something the aircraft was already in the process of doing in the RCAF.
The tour lasted about a month and the aircraft generated a good amount of interest. Both Brazil and Argentina were very interested, but both wanted to license build the aircraft as both countries had domestic aircraft producers.
In the end, we had Confirmed orders from Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Guatemala."
"Project Viper"
Even before the MB-326 sales tour of Central and South America took place, the planning of an armed variant of the aircraft had been taking place in earnest as a private venture.
Tentatively named "Viper" the aircraft had a redesigned forward fuselage to accomodate a pair of 30mm DEFA cannons. The two seat cockpit dimensions were retained, but the rear cockpit was redesigned to house an equipment module with gear specific to the light strike mission.
To maintain parts commonality with the trainer variant, the cockpit canopy was not changed. This also allowed some rearward vision for the pilot to be retained.
GTX_Admin:
:smiley:
apophenia:
Nice! And I sense some interesting marking options coming down the pike :smiley:
GTX_Admin:
Well Paraguay flew the type int he real world but I don't believe the others did:
apophenia:
--- Quote from: GTX_Admin on May 09, 2022, 01:06:54 AM ---Well Paraguay flew the type int he real world but I don't believe the others did:
--- End quote ---
Right! And RW Paraguay got its EMB-326GBs from Embraer, of course. So, how does Brazil respond to Canadair pushing into 'its' South American market?
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