AMX: Brazilian-Italian Fighter-Bomber by João Paulo Zeitoun Moralez. Harpia Publishing, 2022. 144 pp.
AMX: Brazilian-Italian Fighter-Bomber by João Paulo Zeitoun Moralez provides a detailed and timely look at the aircraft and armament used by both Brazil and Italy. The two-part book, divided by country, provides the reader with the history of an aircraft originally designed to meet the demands of a Cold War scenario. The AMX program resulted in one of the world’s most capable fighter-bombers, a type that has seen action in several conflicts and campaigns since it entered service in the early 1990s. The book covers the entire AMX story, from the origins of the program to its daily operations.
The book highlights the quality of publications produced by Harpia Publishing. AMX’s four chapters and three appendices are both professionally written and include quality color graphics and images. Moralez, a journalist and photographer who focuses on aviation and public security, demonstrates his pedigree in documenting aircraft development in his previous Harpia books on the EMB-312 Tucano and EMB-314 Super Tucano, in addition to his more than a hundred journalistic articles related to armed forces aviation in Brazil and abroad.
Italy’s original development of the AMX began in the late 1970s during the Cold War, when the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare) realized a demand for close air support (CAS) aircraft would be needed to help NATO defend against the massive tank armies of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact forces. While the F-104 Starfighter interceptor and Panavia Tornado fighter bomber were mainstays of the air force, they were expensive and ill-suited for the realities of a protracted CAS NATO defense of Europe’s western and southwestern approaches, for which Italy would play a key role.
As a result, the Italian aerospace firm Arimachi originally proposed to the Italian government a compact single-seat, multi-role strike fighter aircraft, designed to fly low-altitude missions at high-subsonic speeds in day or night and in poor visibility. Along with the capability of operating from damaged or unprepared runways, it also would have limited air-to-air capability and integrated electronic countermeasures for self-defense. The aircraft would eventually become known as the AMX A-11 Ghibli, named after the Libyan Arabic phrase meaning “hot desert wind.” Initially, Italy was to cooperate with Sweden in the development of the new aircraft, but in 1978, the Swedish government withdrew from the program and instead developed its own aircraft, the JAS 39 Gripen. To ensure a consolidation of Italy’s aerospace industry resources, a joint venture company was created consisting of Aeritalia and Aermacchi, forming the AMX International Limited.
In the 1980s, as the program progressed, Brazil looked to upgrade its own air force’s CAS aircraft. Brazilian aviation company Embraer became a partner after Brazil opted not to buy similar US-made aircraft due to political considerations. As a result of this partnership, an agreement was also struck to divide AMX manufacturing between the partners. For each production aircraft, Aeritalia manufactured 46.5 percent of the components (central fuselage, stabilizers and rudders), Aermacchi produced 22.8 percent (front fuselage and tail cone), and Embraer performed 29.7 percent of the work (wing, air intakes, pylons, and drop tanks).
The first Italian-assembled prototype performed its maiden flight in May 1984; the first Brazilian-assembled prototype made its first flight in October 1985. Deliveries of the new aircraft commenced during 1988, with the final aircraft assembled during 1999. While Italy’s development of the AMX was based on NATO’s Cold War geopolitical defense strategies, Brazil’s need for the AMX was based more on regional defense strategies.
Brazil, the largest democracy in the Southern Hemisphere, is defending a land mass of 3.2 million square miles, roughly 86.6 percent the size of the United States. To address the need to defend the many miles of coastlines in the east, deep jungles in the center, and mountain ranges in the west, Brazil’s government has turned to a variety of aircraft to project combat power in the widely disperse regions.
Brazil’s national defense policy, as outlined by one defense analysis, “is to consolidate the country as a regional power while at the same time addressing national security issues, promoting economic development through a series of defense programs, restructuring the defense industrial base, fostering innovation through technology and knowledge transfer to Brazil, and indigenous research and development.”1 A major driver in the development of this defense policy is the uneven relationship between the United States and Brazil over the past two centuries. As one Brazilian army colonel shared with the author during a 1996 peacekeeping operation along the Ecuador-Peru border, “Our biggest concern is not our ten regional neighbors, but we do fear the US’s desire to take over the Brazilian rain forests in the name of stopping ‘Climate Change.’ ”
This sometimes-contentious relationship between the two powers, including occasional US arms embargoes against the Brazilian government, led Brazil to rely heavily on domestic production and European exports to provide a series of multi-role aircraft to deal with the diversity of regional challenges. As a result, the joint Brazilian-Italian AMX aircraft program began in 1980 with the development acquisition of 79 aircraft. One of Brazil’s most successful defense aircraft developments, the AMX fulfilled the country’s need for strategic attack missions, air superiority, interdiction, CAS, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare.
In the book, Moralez details the AMX service in the Brazilian Air Force (Forca Aerea Brasileira), including the organization of its original AMX squadron and the fielding of three additional squadrons deployed in the southeast and southern parts of the country. Due to the AMX’s long range, even low-level flight, many parts of Brazil could be covered in a brief period with the support of inflight refueling.
While the AMX itself is nearing the end of its useful life as a first-line CAS aircraft, the history of the joint development and employment of this remarkable aircraft provides aviation historians, modelers, and strategic industrial planners with a model of successful international cooperation, all well captured by Moralez. This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in Italy’s or Brazil’s aviation defense industries.
Colonel Jayson A. Altieri, USA, Retired
1 Leandro Bolzan de Rezende et al., “Brazilian National Defence Policy: Foreign Policy, National Security, Economic Growth, and Technological Innovation,” Defense & Security Analysis 34, no. 4 (2018), https://doi.org/.