Ozires Silva: The living legend who built Embraer and transformed Brazil

AeroTime is excited to welcome Renato Oliveira as a guest columnist. Renato is Operations Director at PVJets Global Private Jets Company, which specializes in charter flights and helicopter transfers for entrepreneurs, individuals, families, and groups.  

Renato spent 15 years as Senior Cabin Crew in the Middle East and has a lifelong passion for aviation history. He has also led the largest research project on Alberto Santos-Dumont and was condecorated by the Brazilian Air Force for efforts in aviation preservation.   

Renato is now working to shape the future of private aviation, connecting today’s innovators with tomorrow’s history.  

The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of AeroTime.    

When we think or speak about the global aviation market, the southern hemisphere is not often considered. 

However, Brazilian planemaker Embraer is currently at the peak of its global influence and continues to rise. The company ranks among the world’s top executive jet manufacturers, with its Phenom and Praetor series reshaping private aviation.  

These aircraft are now trusted by heads of state, visionary CEOs, and entrepreneurs across continents, combining cutting-edge technology with Brazilian design and efficiency. 

In the commercial market, Embraer is the third-largest manufacturer worldwide. 

In military aviation, Embraer has recently impressed the global aerospace community with the KC-390 Millennium, a next-generation, multi-mission transport aircraft that challenges legacy models in performance, payload, and versatility.  Behind this ascent is a number that speaks volumes: today, an Embraer-built aircraft takes off every 10 seconds somewhere around the world. That is over 8,000 takeoffs per day and more than 150 million passengers per year, a living demonstration of the vision and resolve that first took flight decades ago.  Now imagine sitting with the pioneers who made flying a possibility: Santos-Dumont, the brilliant dreamer; the Wright brothers, who turned mechanics into magic; Louis Blériot, who crossed the English Channel in a wood-and-fabric monoplane; and Amelia Earhart, who saw the horizon as a challenge, not a boundary. 

Or perhaps Ozires Silva, Brazil’s own living aviation pioneer. The man who did not just believe Brazil could build aircraft, he proved it, built an entire company, lead it, and fought for it again and again.  Few individuals have shaped the trajectory of an entire industry the way Ozires Silva shaped aviation. As a military pilot, engineer, entrepreneur, and public servant, Silva did not merely found Embraer. He repeatedly rescued, redirected, and reinvented it. His personal convictions and professional decisions were inseparable from the company’s transformation from a state-backed experiment into one of the world’s most competitive aircraft manufacturers. His story is not just about building airplanes; it is about building a country’s confidence in itself.  Born in 1931 in Bauru, São Paulo, Silva came of age in a Brazil that relied on imported technologies and foreign industries. After joining the Brazilian Air Force at the age of 17, he flew missions across remote areas of the Amazon. There, he saw firsthand the vast distances and difficult terrain that separated Brazilians from one another, and began to understand aviation’s power not just as a tool of transport, but as an agent of national integration. His journey began not with ambition for wealth or fame, but with a simple, patriotic question: Why can’t Brazil build its own airplanes?  Determined to change his country’s course, Silva enrolled at the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA), a newly created engineering school designed to empower Brazil’s aerospace future. There, he honed the technical skills needed to turn vision into reality. After graduation, he joined the Centro Técnico Aeroespacial (CTA) and led the design of a small regional aircraft, the EMB-110 Bandeirante. But when it came time to move from prototype to production, Silva faced a defining obstacle: no investor would back the project. 

Brazil’s industrial elite believed aircraft manufacturing was too risky, too expensive, and best left to the Americans or Europeans. Financial institutions refused to invest. Friends and colleagues urged Silva to abandon the project. But he did not retreat. With conviction and diplomatic skill, Silva took his case to the federal government. In 1969, his efforts bore fruit: the state created Embraer, and Ozires Silva became its first president.  As Silva built Embraer from the ground up, he faced the full spectrum of challenges: funding gaps, foreign competition, military skepticism, and bureaucratic inertia. But he also gained allies – engineers, test pilots, ministers, and industrialists who believed in the mission. Under his leadership, Embraer launched successful aircraft like the Xingu, the Tucano, and the EMB-120 Brasília, proving that Brazilian technology could compete globally. Each aircraft addressed a logistical challenge for Brazil while being designed with international scalability in mind. His dual identity as both engineer and public servant allowed him to bridge technical ambition with national strategy.  Though the company grew, Silva realized Embraer’s long-term success required independence from political cycles. In the late 1980s, he stepped away to serve as president of Petrobras and later as Minister of Infrastructure. But Embraer faltered under state control, and by the early 1990s, it faced severe financial trouble. Silva returned in 1991 to lead a bold and controversial initiative: privatization. 

Transforming a national aerospace icon into a private corporation was not easy, but Silva understood that global success demanded agility, innovation, and competitive governance. The privatization, completed in 1994, marked a turning point. Embraer quickly transitioned from a government-dependent firm to a lean, focused competitor in the international market. That transformation paved the way for the ERJ-145 regional jet, a commercial success that secured Embraer’s position as a leader in regional aviation. 

By the early 2000s, Embraer was exporting aircraft around the globe, serving airlines in Europe, Asia, and North America. Brazil, which once imported all of its aircraft, now stood as a producer of world-class jets. Silva’s mission had become reality. 

Although he could have retired, Silva instead chose to reinvest in the future. He served as president of universities, led biotech firms, and authored books such as ‘Cartas a um Jovem Empreendedor’ and ‘Nas Asas da Educação’, encouraging Brazil’s youth to embrace science, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He became not only a symbol of Brazil’s industrial power but also its moral voice on development and education. 

In 2021, Silva received the Daniel Guggenheim Medal, the most prestigious award in aeronautical engineering, becoming the first Brazilian to earn the honor. Embraer later renamed its main facility in São José dos Campos the Ozires Silva Unit and, in 2024, installed a suspended replica of the Bandeirante at its entrance, symbolizing the dream that first took flight under his leadership. 

Silva’s life reflects the classical arc of a hero’s journey: a young man called by a national challenge, tested by rejection and risk, who returns to deliver a gift to his people. That gift, a globally competitive aerospace company, continues to transform Brazil’s place in the world. 

Now imagine if you could sit with a giant. One of those rare individuals who did not just witness history, but shaped it. A living peer to the names we study in books. Ozires Silva is that giant. And unlike so many pioneers whose greatness we only recognize after they are gone, he is still among us. We owe it to ourselves, and to history, to honor our heroes while they are alive. 

Ozires Silva is 94, and continues to still inspire.  The post Ozires Silva: The living legend who built Embraer and transformed Brazil appeared first on AeroTime.

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