By José Albiac

The Command-in-Chief of the Argentine Air Force officially presented at the beginning of 1968 the requirements to the Cordoba Material Area for the project and construction of the FMA IA-58 Pucará. The construction of the first prototype began in September of the same year, and made its first flight the 16 of August of 1969. The first prototype was equipped with two turboprops Garret TPE 331 of 904 HP, but soon for the series airplanes the Turbomeca Astazou XVI-G was selected, of 1.021 HP, that drive variables three-blade propellers. The Pucará is the only plane produced by the Military Factory of Airplanes that entered into combat, since it was used by the Argentine Air Force in the conflict of the Malvinas Islands. It is a two-seater ground-attack and tactical support airplane of entirely metallic construction, and their general characteristics are:

Width 14.50 ms; Length 14.25 ms; Height 5.36 ms; wing area 30.30 m2; Empty weight 3,985 kg; Maximum weight in take-off  6,625 kg; Maximum weight in landing 5,800 kg; Payload 2,640 kg; Speed at 3,000 ms of altitude, 520 km/h; Speed in deep 750 km/h; Cruise speed 485 km/h; Rate of climb at sea level 18 m/s; Take-off distance 420 ms; Landing distance 230 ms; Normal range 1,400 km; Ferry flying range, 3,400 km.

It count with two Martin-Baker Mk.6 zero-zero ejection seats. The fixed armament consisted of four FN Browning 7.62 mm machine guns located in both sides of the fuselage, and two HS 804 20 mm cannons in the inferior part of the nose. Has in addition three pylons to transport external loads by a gross weight of 1,500 kg, being able to take bombs, rockets or napalm tanks. In the time of the Malvinas conflict tests for the launch of torpedoes were made, but did not prosper. Were made sales to Uruguay, Venezuela and Indonesia, without counting the units captured by the British in the South Atlantic conflict.

Pucará with the more common camouflage scheme used in the Malvinas conflict

An example present in the South Atlantic armed with a ventral container of an additional cannon

Blueprints

Photos

Details

Pucará 1 - Pucará  2 - Pucará 3