The SAAF Forum

Hi

Why did the SAAF not buy the Royal airforce C130J Hercules that was offered?
We could of had inflight refueling capability again.

Thanks

lack of funds is the main reason.

An aside: Do we need inflight refueling capabilities? From my limited point of view, that would be a no?

Gripen has a good self-deployment capability, as seen when they deployed to Ndola in 2013 to assist South Africa’s withdrawal from the CAR.

But having an inflight refueling capability is certainly beneficial as it makes planning and deployment easier and quicker.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

Yes we do need inflight refueling other wise we are in the stone age!!!!

Dean's quote above refers to a deployment during 2013, circa 10 years ago. When (if ever) will the Gripens be deployed again given the current and future budgetary constraints. We shouldn't be involving ourselves in any offensive position, at best we should look at protecting our borders.

Why would we worry about a capability which is rarely used in the SA context and at that, would require special training and maintenance with 60% of our fleet (random number), that is not VIP transport, grounded. Do we even have maritime capabilities right now? Talk about stone age.

Edit: Does anyone in SADC have inflight refueling capabilities?

Roulof do we really need a Defence Force?

If our SADC partners are there to look after us and there's no overseas threat at all we should be safe with no worries at all.