The Ipanema - ethanol-fuelled crop dusting plane

EMBRAER - Brazil's Aviation success story

When conversation turns to commercial aviation manufacturers, most people think of the two dominant large aircraft manufacturers: BOEING and Airbus. EMBRAER (Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica) has become one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world by focusing on specific market segments with high growth potential in commercial, defense, and executive aviation. They develop and adapt successful aircraft platforms and introduce new technology whenever it creates value by lowering acquisition price, reducing direct operating costs, or delivering higher reliability, comfort, and safety.

As a result, Embraer's aircraft provide excellent performance with day-in and day-out reliability, while being economical to acquire and cost-effective to operate and maintain. An example of this is Finland's regional airline Finncomm that operates Embraer's ERJ 145, flying nearly 100,000 passengers every year in some of the harshest conditions on the planet where temperatures can reach -51.5 centigrade.
The launch of the ERJ 145 in 1996 was representative of a completely new market offering - jet engineering focused purely on regional customer needs and desires. This continues to be EMBRAER's strength. Almost 1,000 aircraft based on the ERJ 145 platform have been delivered, over 860 to airlines, logging over 10 million cumulative flight hours. Today the ERJ 145 Regional Jet family carries more than 150,000 passengers every day in emerging and established markets around the world.
Air Canada now operates both the EMBRAER 175 and 190. LOT Polish Airlines, Paramount Airways, and Finnair will also have mixed fleets of EMBRAER as they tailor capacity to market demand.
The EMBRAER 195 is the largest in the E-jets family with capability for 122 seats and a range of 2,200 nautical miles, being well suited to low-cost airline environments.
EMBRAER is based in São José dos Campos in the state of São Paulo. It was founded in 1969 as a government initiative and then privatized in 1994.
EMBRAER was Brazil’s largest exporter from 1999 to 2001 and the second largest in 2002, 2003 and 2004. It currently employs more than 23,734 people, 88.2% based in Brazil, and contributes to the creation of more than 5,000 indirect jobs.

The Ipanema - Alcohol powered ingenuity

The Ipanema(EMB 202A) crop-dusting aircraft produced by Indústria Aeronáutica Neiva, a wholly owned EMBRAER subsidiary is the first series production aircraft in the world coming out of the factory certified for flying with ethanol.

The choice for using ethanol was based on the fact that Brazil is a major producer of this type of alcohol, extracted from sugar cane, and automobiles have been using this fuel for more than 20 years. Indeed much of the region around the factory where the Ipanema is manufactured in Botucatu in the São Paulo countryside is devoted to sugarcane plantations. Ethanol is about three to four times cheaper than aviation gasoline (AvGas). Additionally, ethanol-powered aircraft engines are cleaner and have lower levels of emission than AvGas because they have no lead in their composition, providing for a more environmentally friendly fuel. Neiva has registered the name “AvAlc” (Aviation Alcohol) in Brazil for use of this new fuel.

In 2005, Embraer’s ethanol-fueled  Ipanema crop dusting airplane won  the prestigious Flight International Aerospace Industry Award in the General Aviation category at the magazine’s award dinner in Paris.