Hungarian military type certificate to the brazilian KC-390 aircraft type

The purpose of the type-worthiness procedure is to determine the suitability of an aircraft type for safe air transport, which is an important issue considering that an aircraft can pose a significant danger to other actors in aviation, to other aircraft, its crew and passengers, but not only to those, but also to those on the ground.

During the procedure, the authority's specialists jointly developed the so-called type-worthiness inspection plan, which forms the basis of the procedure. Since this type is still relatively new on the market, its development began at the beginning of the 2000s and the first manufactured copies were received by the Brazilian Air Force only in 2019, so many investigations, mainly regarding the operation of the aircraft, were still ongoing by the manufacturer at the beginning of the procedure.

In addition, at the beginning of the Hungarian official procedure, the Brazilian military aviation authority's type-worthiness inspection procedure was also in progress, the aircraft type only had a temporary type certificate until March 2023. This definitely justified the Hungarian authorities establishing a relationship with the Brazilian military organization, which greatly helped the certification work.

The Brazilian authority carries out its activities with a significant apparatus (200+ people), so it was able to provide effective assistance to the Hungarian authority. This mainly resulted in the transfer of the test results they carried out and the description of test procedures. The exchange of professional experience and the use of test results was made possible by a cooperation agreement concluded between the two authorities earlier, but already on the topic of the KC-390 aircraft.

Of particular importance in the investigation procedure was the examination of the integration of the equipment (e.g. special on-board radios, emergency medical unit) requested by the Hungarian side and installed in accordance with the needs of the Hungarian Defence Forces into the aircraft's on-board system, which of course, given that they were tailored specifically to Hungarian needs, but have not been previously certified by the Brazilian side.

The procedure reached its climax in April 2024, when immediately after the end of the manufacturer's test flights, the first Hungarian plane's type qualification flight was carried out at the Embraer company's manufacturing site in Gavião Peixoto, Brazil. The flight was carried out by the factory's department responsible for test flights with its pilots and on-board engineers, but representatives of the Hungarian military aviation authority were also on board during the flight.

During the nearly two-hour flight, the main systems of the aircraft were checked, their proper and safe operation during the flight. After the successful flight, as the last, administrative phase of the procedure, the test results were summarized, and then the KC-390's Hungarian military type certificate was issued, the original copy of which was presented by the authority's representatives, Lt. Col. Simon Sándor, head of the airworthiness department, and Lt. Col. László Jakab, Dr., flight safety department head, handed it over to the manufacturer's official on June 25, 2024 in São José dos Campos, Brazil.