The Republic of Angola has placed a firm order for three Airbus C295s to perform multirole operations. Two aircraft will be specifically equipped for maritime surveillance and one for transport missions. The aircraft configured for transport missions will be able to carry out tactical cargo and troop transport tasks, paratrooping, load dropping or humanitarian missions. With this new order, the Força Aérea Nacional de Angola becomes the 38th C295 operator worldwide.
The two C295s configured as Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA) will play a key role for Search and Rescue (SAR), control of illegal fishing and borders, support in case of natural disasters and intelligence-gathering missions, among others. They will be equipped with the Airbus-developed Fully Integrated Tactical System (FITS) mission system as well state-of-the-art sensors. All three aircraft will be equipped with the latest version of the Collins Aerospace Pro Line Fusion avionics suite.
Airbus C295 is a medium tactical transport aircraft that was designed by the Spanish company CASA in the 1990s as a development of the CASA/IPTN CN-235. When CASA was incorporated into the European aeronautical group EADS in 2000, the aircraft was designated as the EADS CASA C-295. It made its first flight on 28 November 1997 and entered service with the Spanish Air Force in 2001. It has been acquired by various nations such as Spain, Egypt, Poland, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Portugal, and it has participated in numerous international operations.
With the new C295 version equipped with winglets, the aircraft is capable of transporting more payload over larger distances in the hot and high conditions, resulting in fuel consumption savings of around 4% and increased safety margins in mountainous regions. High versatility, many variants, multiple missions, one aircraft. Most of the different variants can easily be re-configured to a transport version and back, due to the palletised modular mission systems.
