The Brazilian government announced on 12 May that it will cut BRL161 million (USD45 million) from the Brazilian Air Force budget, with most of which to be culled from the AMX aircraft modernisation programme.
Work on the modernisation effort will mostly come to a halt for this year, and the air force will have to wait until 2017 to possibly restart work.
The plan was to modernise 33 single-seaters (locally called A-1A) and 10 two-seaters (A-1B) to the A-1M standard, and was already progressing at a slow rate with few aircraft delivered since the first was received by the air force in 2013.
The modernisation plan includes installing the SCP-1 Scipio radar, developed by Brazilian company Mectron and Italian company Galileo Avionica, while the cockpit will receive a heads-up display, three multifunction displays, HOTAS commands, a gyro electronic unit, and other improvements (Elbit Systems is doing much of the work). Aside from updating the electronics, survivability, and cockpit, the effort is to extend the airframes’ service life by 20 more years.
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