The trainer that conquered three continents

What makes the MB-326 special

Full MB-326 specifications

Baseline note: the figures below describe the MB-326G and its export twin the MB-326GB as delivered from 1967 — the six-pylon armed two-seater with the 15.2 kN (3,410 lbf) Rolls-Royce Viper 20 Mk 540. That is the mark that matters, because almost every licence-built MB-326 in the world is a G in disguise: the Australian CAC CA-30, the Brazilian EMBRAER AT-26 Xavante and the South African Atlas Impala Mk I are all the same aeroplane with different data plates. Deltas for the original 1962 Viper 11 trainer, for the single-seat MB-326K and its South African equivalent the Impala Mk II, and for the licence-built marks are given in grey. Four disagreements are worth settling before the tables begin. First, empty weight: the single-seat MB-326K and Impala Mk II weigh about 440 kg more empty than the two-seat G, not less — two 30 mm cannon, their ammunition, additional fuel and the local structure to carry all of it cost far more than deleting a crewman saves. Second, the engine of the single-seaters: reference works routinely credit the MB-326K with the 17.8 kN (4,000 lbf) Viper 632-43, but the South African Air Force is explicit that the Impala Mk II — built to the same drawings, in larger numbers than the Italian original — kept the 3,410 lbf Viper Mk 540. An Impala Mk II is therefore a heavier aeroplane on trainer thrust, which explains a great deal about how it was flown. Third, maximum take-off weight: 4,577 kg is the Jane’s figure for a G brimming with fuel and carrying no weapons, while South African sources give 5,897 kg for a combat-loaded Impala Mk II; the two numbers describe different aeroplanes doing different jobs and neither is wrong. Fourth, production: the standard formula is "over 800 built between 1961 and 1975", and the total is sound, but the dates are not — they describe the Italian line only. Embraer was still rolling out Xavantes in 1981 with deliveries running into 1983, and Atlas built Impala Mk IIs into the early 1980s.

Armament & payload

The MB-326 has no gun of its own until you delete the back seat, and that single fact divides the family in two

Everything the two-seat MB-326 carries hangs from underwing pylons — four on the earliest armed marks, six from the G onwards, rated at about 1,814 kg (4,000 lb) in total. There is no internal gun. Cannon and machine guns come in pods, which is honest about what the aeroplane is: a 3,410 lbf trainer with hardpoints, sold to air forces that could not afford a trainer and an attack aircraft separately. The single-seat branch of the family is a different proposition. The MB-326K, first flown on 22 August 1970, and the South African Atlas Impala Mk II built to the same drawings, threw out the rear cockpit and put two 30 mm DEFA 553 cannon in the lower forward fuselage with their ammunition. That turned a trainer into a light attack aircraft that could actually fight, and it is the version that went to war.

Go to war it did, and mostly in southern Africa. South African Impalas flew close air support, battlefield interdiction and armed reconnaissance against FAPLA, SWAPO and Cuban forces in Angola from 1975 to 1987, typically at 550–650 km/h at fifteen metres, which is the height at which an SA-7 cannot solve the problem in time. They were withdrawn from external operations before Operation Moduler in 1987, when Angolan air defences finally became too dense for a subsonic aircraft with no radar and a hand-me-down warning receiver. One Impala was brought down by an SA-7; another came home with an unexploded missile lodged in its jet pipe. Weapon fits differ enormously between the two-seat and single-seat branches and between operators: an Australian MB-326H carried practice bombs and a camera gun and nothing else for thirty-four years, a Brazilian AT-26 carried rockets and a reconnaissance pod, and only the South African Impala Mk II ever carried the full South African arsenal. Read every line below as "on some marks, for some air forces".

Sourcing caveat: armament figures for the MB-326 family are unusually messy. Aermacchi’s own literature lists options rather than fits, national air forces cleared different subsets of them, and the South African inventory in particular contains locally developed weapons that were never publicly catalogued during the apartheid-era arms embargo. Where Aermacchi and the South African Air Force disagree — on cannon ammunition, on the Impala Mk II’s engine and on maximum weights — both figures are given above rather than one being silently preferred.

Variants

Four countries built the MB-326, and three of them were not Italy

The MB-326 is the most exported Italian military aircraft of its era and the licence-production story is the reason. Ermanno Bazzocchi’s design first flew on 10 December 1957 in the hands of Macchi’s chief test pilot Guido Carestiato, entered Italian Air Force service on 22 March 1962, and then did something almost no European aircraft of the period managed: it was manufactured under licence in Australia by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, in Brazil by the newly founded EMBRAER, and in South Africa by the Atlas Aircraft Corporation. Between them the three foreign lines built more MB-326s than Macchi did. Of roughly 800 airframes, fewer than half were built in Italy.

Each licence did something different for its host. For Australia it was industrial maintenance: CAC built both the airframe and the Viper engine, keeping a national aircraft industry alive between the Sabre and nothing at all. For Brazil it was foundational: the Xavante was EMBRAER’s first jet, ordered in 1970 when the company was two years old, and the 182 aircraft it built between 1971 and 1983 taught a Brazilian workforce how to make a combat aeroplane. Everything from the AMX to the A-29 Super Tucano and the Gripen assembly line at Gavião Peixoto descends from that decision. For South Africa it was survival: an arms embargo made buying aircraft progressively impossible, and Atlas’s Impala line meant the South African Air Force could keep replacing combat losses without asking anyone’s permission.

The design also solved a problem it created. Selling an "all-through" jet trainer that took a student from first solo to combat readiness on one type looked elegant on paper, and in practice was expensive: jet hours cost more than piston hours, and most operators quickly bolted a cheap propeller trainer onto the front of the syllabus. The MB-326 settled into the role it was actually good at, which was lead-in fighter training. When Aermacchi came to replace it in the mid-1970s the answer was the MB-339: the same wing, the same fuselage aft of the cockpit, a raised rear seat and the 4,000 lbf Viper 632-43. The MB-339 is not a successor so much as a correction, and it is covered on its own page.

MB-326 (1957–1960s; 2 prototypes and about 125 for Italy)

The original unarmed all-through trainer on the 11.1 kN Viper 11, plus 15 pre-series aircraft ordered in December 1958. Alitalia bought four demilitarised examples as the MB-326D to prepare airline crews for jets.

MB-326B / E / F / L series (1960s–1970s; several dozen)

Armed two-seat export trainers with four hardpoints, sold in small batches to Tunisia, Ghana and others. Six MB-326Es served Italy as armed trainers; five Italian aircraft became MB-326RM electronic-warfare and calibration conversions.

MB-326G / GB / GC (from 1967)

The definitive two-seater: Viper 20 Mk 540, six pylons, 1,814 kg of external load. Zambia took 23, Zaire 17, Argentina eight for its Navy’s 1 Escuadrilla de Ataque. This is the mark all three licensees built.

MB-326H / CAC CA-30 (Australia, 1967–1972; 97)

Twelve built by Macchi, 18–20 assembled from Italian kits and the remainder built outright by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, which also made the Viper. Ten went to the Royal Australian Navy’s 724 Squadron. Australia flew the "Macchi" from 1967 to 2001, longer than anyone.

MB-326K (first flight 22 August 1970)

The single-seat light attack version: rear cockpit deleted, two internal 30 mm DEFA 553, strengthened structure and eventually the 17.8 kN Viper 632-43. Sold in small numbers as the MB-326KB to Ghana and Zaire, the MB-326KD to Dubai and the MB-326KT to Tunisia.

Atlas Impala Mk I (South Africa, licence from 1964, production from 1966; about 40 Italian-built plus about 125 Atlas-built)

The MB-326M, a G-standard two-seater assembled and then manufactured in South Africa. Trainer, light strike aircraft and mount of the Silver Falcons display team.

Atlas Impala Mk II (South Africa, 1974–early 1980s; about 95–100)

The MB-326K localised: seven bought complete from Italy, 15 assembled from kits and 73–78 built by Atlas. Retained the 3,410 lbf Viper Mk 540 rather than the 632-43, gained a South African countermeasures fit, and did essentially all of the type’s real fighting.

EMBRAER EMB-326GB / AT-26 Xavante (Brazil, first Brazilian flight 6 September 1971; 182 built to 1981, deliveries to 1983)

Ordered in 1970 as two pattern aircraft and 166 production machines; 167 for the Brazilian Air Force, ten for Paraguay and six for Togo. Some were converted to RT-26 reconnaissance standard with a four-camera Vinten pod. Eleven were transferred to the Argentine Navy after the 1982 Falklands War to rebuild 1 Escuadrilla de Ataque.

Aermacchi MB-339 (1976 onwards; roughly 200–230)

Not an MB-326 variant but its direct descendant, built on the MB-326K wing with a redesigned forward fuselage and a raised rear seat. Treated fully on its own page; noted here so the family tree is not mistaken for a longer MB-326 production run than it was.

Disposition, September 2026: no air force flies the MB-326 in front-line service. Italy replaced it with the MB-339 between 1981 and 1984 and kept a handful as liaison hacks. Australia retired the last Macchis in 2001 in favour of the Hawk 127; the Royal Australian Navy had given up its ten in 1983 and the Roulettes display team flew the type from December 1970 to 1989. South Africa withdrew the Impala Mk II around 2005, and the dates there are genuinely muddled: 8 Squadron, the first unit to receive the Mk II in November 1974, was disbanded on 31 March 2001 when the Impala was declared retired, yet South African Air Force sources give the type’s service span as 1974 to 2005. Both are true — the squadrons went first and the airframes lingered. Brazil retired the Xavante from the training role in 2013, with a small number retained by the flight-test establishment for occasional trials work afterwards; a widely quoted date of 2 December 2010 refers to withdrawal from operational squadrons, not to the end of flying. Zambia and Tunisia, the last two military holdouts on paper, now list the type as retired — Zambia flies K-8s and L-15s instead. A batch of ex-South African Impalas was reported delivered to Cameroon in the late 2000s but the type does not appear in current inventories. Survivors are numerous and almost all are original airframes rather than reproductions — this is a 1960s jet, not a Great War type, and nobody builds replicas of it. The South African Air Force Museum at Swartkop holds several Impalas, and further examples are preserved at Ysterplaat and at the South African National Museum of Military History in Johannesburg. Ex-South African Impalas make up the bulk of the civil warbird fleet, flying on ZU- registrations in South Africa and in small numbers in the United States, where the Estrella Warbirds Museum at Paso Robles displays a Mk I. That fleet is not risk-free: an Impala Mk I, ZU-IMP, was lost in a display accident at Saldanha Bay on 22 March 2025. The type’s worst day, though, was not in Angola. On 6 December 1990 an Italian Air Force MB-326, abandoned by its pilot after an in-flight fire, crashed into a classroom at the Istituto Salvemini in Casalecchio di Reno near Bologna and killed twelve schoolchildren.

Fifty years of the MB-326

From the flight line: twelve MB-326 stories

The MB-326 in pictures

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The MB-326 in motion

Flying MB-326 and Impala footage is on the way.

The MB-326 in motion

Weapon Detective — one of the most-watched MB-326 films on YouTube.

Where the MB-326 flew

The little trainer that went to war

The MB-326’s combat record belongs mostly to the South African Atlas Impala, which flew close air support, armed reconnaissance and reportedly helicopter-interception sorties throughout the Border War (c. 1966–1989) over Angola and Namibia. Argentine EMBRAER Xavantes were deployed during the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas period, and other operators used the type in regional conflicts. Treat specific sortie and kill claims cautiously — open sources are inconsistent.

Compare the combat record of every military aircraft. Figures as of July 2026.

Everything people ask about the MB-326

Continue the tour

Every fact, checked

• MiGFlug — MB-326 flight experienceThe booking page for civilian MB-326 flights from Reggio Emilia, Italy.
• flugzeuginfo.net — MB.326 technical dataSpecifications and the ~761-built production figure.
• MilitaryFactory — Aermacchi MB.326Development history, variants and operator overview.
• Vintage Aviation NewsFirst flight of the MB-326 and the licence-production story.
• globalmilitary.net — MB-326KAttack-variant specifications and 2026 operator status.
• Sea Power Centre (RAN)The CAC Aermacchi MB-326H “Macchi” in Australian service.
• Aviation Heritage Museum WAThe RAAF Macchi MB-326H — history and preservation.