During the early 1980s, an agreement with Piper Aircraft saw IndAer begin the local assembly of the firm's PA-28 Dakotas for the Chilean Air Force.

Around the same period, it also started building the ENAER T-35 Pillán, a military light trainer, which was developed for manufacture in Chile by Piper, based on a PA-32R fuselage with a new center-section and wing stressed for aerobatics.

[citation needed] During the 1980s, the Chilean Air Force acquired four Spanish-built CASA C-101 trainer aircraft, along with a licensing agreement for another eight to be assembled locally by ENAER.

[4][5] A follow-on agreement for a dedicated attack version of the C-101, which was locally designated as the A-36 Halcón ("Falcon"), was also ordered by Chile;[6] only the prototype was manufactured in Spain, while the remaining 22 machines were assembled by ENAER.

[14][15] By 1998, it was planned to assemble a modified version of the aircraft, powered by a 150 hp (110 kW) Textron Lycoming O-320-D2A engine, in a new factory in the Netherlands.