The Polish Air Force needs to replace its aging C-130 E/H Hercules aircrafts, and the Brazilian C-390 Millennium is one of the candidates under consideration to take over.
According to Polish journalist Marcin Walków, who had the chance to travel on a press flight in the C-390, Embraer executives told him that Poland is a potential customer for its military transport aircraft, and that they are actively working to respond to the need to replace the Polish Hercules.
Walków also inquired about the issue with the Polish Ministry of National Defense, which responded as follows:
«Within the framework of the acquisition of strategic airlift, medevac and in-flight refueling capabilities, the Ministry of National Defense is conducting a multilevel analysis of various ways of securing these capabilities and possible timelines for accelerating their implementation in relation to the original plans for their acquisition.»
The Polish Air Force operates five C-130E Hercules, acquired second-hand from the U.S., and the advanced state of exhaustion of their airframes must be the reason why the Polish Ministry of Defense is seeking to accelerate its replacement plans. As a palliative measure, Poland is in the process of taking delivery of five more H-model Hercules, also decommissioned by the USAF. This situation is far from ideal, and the need to find a more modern and capable solution, especially in light of the security situation on NATO’s Eastern front and the expansion of the Polish Armed Forces, is evident.
«Due to the conducted analyses, marked with the corresponding secrecy clause, detailed information on the course of this process is not subject to public disclosure at this stage,» the Defense Ministry adds in its response to the Money.pl reporter.
Although no explicit mention is made of the transport aircraft models under study, it is easy to infer that the three most likely candidates are the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, the «natural» successor; the Airbus A400M, the pan-European strategic bet; and the Embraer C-390 Millennium, the rising star, which has recently been reaping many successes in the European market, and everything seems to indicate that this trend will continue over time.
