The mission was to fly over the Valley of Santa Maria, to launch bombs on the rebels' stronghold, and to observe and direct the shots of the artillery and the advance of the infantry.

At the end of July, the rebel government obtained another plane, brought by Lieutenant Artur Mota Lima, who defected from Campo dos Afonsos, Rio de Janeiro.

The "reds", as the federal government planes were known, not only acted on the lines of combat, but also were used to bombard several cities of São Paulo, among them Campinas, where they caused great damage.

For the use of aerial means, General Góis Monteiro had in his Staff of two advisers, Captains Vasco Alves Secco and Carlos Pfaltzgraff Brazil.

Two years later the French Military Mission, working for the Brazilian Army, made the first steps to organize a national air arm.

Also, the Spanish Revolution and the first movements of World War II at the end of the thirties showed the importance of Air power for military strategies.

The 1oGAVCA started its fighting career as a fighter-bomber unit, its missions being armed reconnaissance and interdiction, in support of the US Fifth Army, to which the FEB was attached.

[citation needed] On 22 April 1945, the three remaining flights took off at 5-minute intervals, starting at 8:30 AM, to destroy bridges, barges, and motorized vehicles in the San Benedetto region.

During events involving the Lobster War, between 1961 and 1964, the Brazilian Air Force played an important role in monitoring and patrolling the large area of litigation with France, making its B-17 squadrons available for observation and photo-reconnaissance of French vessels close to Brazilian coast, in addition to using its most modern anti-submarine warfare means, such as the S-2 Tracker and P-2V Neptune.

[12] In 1977 the Brazilian Air Force conducted Operation Saucer regarding alleged UFO sightings in the city of Colares, Pará State.

In the midst of the Falklands War, on a rainy Good Friday night, the radar system detected a lyushin II-62M, registration number CU-T1225, Soviet-made and belonging to Cubana, a Cuban state company about 300 km away from Brasilia.

[16][17] On June 3, 1982, two F-5E Tiger II fighters from the 1st Fighter Aviation Group, based at the Santa Cruz Air Force Base - Rio de Janeiro, intercepted an Avro Vulcan Royal Air Force that had technical problems when returning from a mission during the Falklands War in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

[18] On May 19, 1986, a series of radar and visual contacts with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) took place across the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Goiás, the Santa Cruz Air Force Base was put on alert due to the presence of several unidentified radar plots around São José dos Campos.

During the events of that night, 2 Northrop F-5 and 3 Dassault Mirage III fighters were activated in an attempt to intercept dozens of UFOs over the four Brazilian states.

"[19][20] The Embraer (Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica, Brazilian Aeronautic Co.) company has its origins as an enterprise directly managed and sponsored by the FAB.

[citation needed] During Operation Traira, in February 1991, six AT-27 Tucanos were used for close air support against a group of 40 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), which had seized a Brazilian military detachment.

[citation needed] On November 21, 2008, F-5E Tiger II fighter jets from the 1st Fighter Aviation Group based at the Santa Cruz Air Force Base intercepted a civilian cargo Douglas DC-8 from a private company in Ghana as it entered the Brazilian airspace, off the coast of Cabo Frio, littoral of Rio de Janeiro.

[22] On 3 June 2009, two Brazilian Air Force A-29 Super Tucanos, guided by an Embraer R-99, intercepted a Cessna U206G engaged in drug trafficking activities.

[30] On July 15, 2005, one agreement was set with the French government for the transfer of twelve Dassault Mirage 2000s (ten "C" and two "B" versions) second-hand ex-Armée de L'Air.

[citation needed] In 2007, Brazilian Air Force's Institute for Advanced Studies started the 14-X development, a hypersonic scramjet demonstrator envisaged to fly at 30 km of altitude at 3 km/s, corresponding to Mach number 10.

[34] In September 2009, following a surprise French visit to Brazil, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Nicolas Sarkozy, from France, made a new military cooperation agreement.

[41][42] In a move apparently following the NSA spying scandal,[43] Russia has also offered Brazil a stake in the development of the Sukhoi PAK-FA 5th generation jet fighter[44] with complete stealth technology transfer.

[49] As of January 2014, Brazil is in negotiations with Saab to lease current model Gripens while they wait four years for the next generation jets on order to be developed and built.

[50] On July 28, 2015, the Brazilian government met with a Swedish trading commission to revisit the contract and request a low of 2.58% in interest rates to 1.98% per annum, generating a savings of 1 billion dollars in 25 years.

[54] In November 2020 the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), through a technical and multidisciplinary team coordinated by the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, concluded, on October 30, in Rio de Janeiro, the last phase of the inflight refueling tests campaign between the H-36 Caracal helicopter and the KC-130 Hercules aircraft.

The Campaign aimed to complete the tasks foreseen in the certification process, including the unprecedented steps of transferring fuel from the KC-130 to the H-36 and the simultaneous refueling of two helicopters.

[55] The Link-BR2 is a datalink developed by the Air Force and the Brazilian defence company AEL Sistemas, this technology allow the exchange of data such radar information, videos and images with other units of the three branches anytime and anywhere, using an advanced encrypted protocol with a high degree of security.

Economy, Finance and Administration Secretariate (Secretaria de Economia, Finanças e Administração da Aeronáutica (SEFA)) is headquartered in Brasília, DF.

This is a legacy from the time when each of the three armed serviced was under its own government ministry and the corresponding Ministério da Aeronáutica (MAER) was in charge of both the FAB and civil aviation.

In 1943, at the former Alfonsos Field School of Aeronautics and with the support of the Air Force, cadet gymnastics instructor Achile Garcia Charles Astor first introduced civil parachute training in Brazil.