Epic Aircraft celebrated the announcement of a purchase agreement this week at LABACE 2023 by Brazilian fractional-share operator Avantto for 34 Epic E1000 GX turboprop singles. Epic CEO Doug King flew the E1000 GX on display at LABACE from the company's Bend, Oregon headquarters, along with a 16-liter bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne that he shared during the celebration.

Deliveries of Avantto's E1000s are scheduled to begin in mid-October, with the second by year-end and the rest arriving at the rate of eight per year over the next four years. This will depend on E1000 certification by Brazil's ANAC, which is pending.

Antares Aviation Hub, located at an airport in Brazil's Central West region, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Escola Superior do Ar (University of the Air) that will help develop aviation talent. The agreement, signed on Tuesday at the LABACE 2023 show in Sao Paulo, will make Antares the first distance learning pole of the Central West, according to Antares director Romeu da Silva Neiva Junior and Francisco Lyra, CEO of C Fly Aviation and one of the founders of Escola Superior do Ar.

Lyra's track record includes developing the Sao Paulo-area business aviation airport Caterina Executive. His Lyra goal for the new project is to train people to help meet the projected growth of aviation. Human resource departments are overwhelmed with people who arrive needing extensive additional training before they can start working, he said.

Octans Aircraft brought its prototype five-seat piston single Cygnus to LABACE, and the company has applied for Brazilian ANAC certification of the airplane. Having exhibited at LABACE 2019, Brazil-based Octans at the time promised to return to LABACE with certification plans for Cygnus.

Prototype 001 arrived at Congonhas Airport for LABACE 2023 under its own power, flown from Octansas upstate Sao Joao da Boa Vista factory by two pilots. The trip added more time to the prototype's already logged 100 flight-test hours.

Aviation medical and security companies MedAire and Aerosafety are demonstrating MedAire's medical emergency MedLink service with live incoming calls and its Digital Assessment Kit (DAK) this week at LABACE 2023. Aerosafety is also celebrating its 25th anniversary at the show, which runs through Thursday at Sao Paulo Congonhas Airport.

Medaire has been a shareholder of Brazil-based Aerosafety since 2013, which has helped the U.S. company expand distribution of its products and services in the Brazilian commercial and business aviation markets. Together, the companies serve the Brazilian market with emergency equipment sales, testing, and repair and medical, security, and consulting services.

The reform and simplification of Brazil's arcane tax system, with its confusing accretion of cascading taxes, is underway in its congress after 30 years of discussion. The unification of municipal, state, and federal taxes and a reduction in their numbers for example, with a single national rate for fuel excise taxes offers hope for aviation but also the specter of a possible extension of motor vehicle excise taxes to aircraft. 

Changing the entrenched tax structure is neither fast nor easy, requiring the amending of the book-length Brazilian constitution, and even if the proposal, PEC 45/2019, moves quickly through congress, it will take effect only in 2029-2034. The current structure is blamed for constraining economic growth and discouraging foreign investment.