The AT-6 Wolverine is the A-29 Super Tucano's perennial bridesmaid — Textron's armed version of the T-6 Texan II trainer, faster and with ejection seats, sharing thousands of trainers' logistics. Yet it lost every big competition to the A-29 and to the OA-1K, and only Thailand ever bought it.
The OA-1K Skyraider II is the armed crop-duster that beat the A-29 Super Tucano for the US Armed Overwatch contract — an Air Tractor AT-802 turned into an L3Harris gunship with 10 hardpoints, Hellfires and a WESCAM sensor ball. It won the US buy the A-29 dominates the world without.
The Embraer A-29 Super Tucano is the world's default light-attack aircraft — a $1,000-per-hour turboprop with 60,000 combat hours from Colombia's FARC strikes to Afghanistan and Nigeria, 290+ ordered by 20+ air forces, and a counter-drone role added in 2025.
The turboprop that flies like a jet — Switzerland's Pilatus PC-21 trains fast-jet pilots at a fraction of a jet's cost by mimicking jet-like performance and cockpits, "downloading" expensive jet training onto a cheap propeller plane. The most successful Western advanced trainer of its generation.
Israel's heaviest operational MALE UAV — a turboprop-powered, satellite-linked strategic surveillance and strike platform with 30-plus-hour endurance, now also flown by Germany in NATO missions.
China's most numerous modern AEW&C platform — a Y-9-based turboprop carrying a fixed three-array AESA radar for 360° coverage, in service with both the PLAAF and PLANAF and reportedly sought by Pakistan.