The SAAF Forum

This is once again a no think situation. Were these Grippins bought for show and just to be shown off at airshows? Its time the SAAF did some thinking, if there is anyone who can think there at this time about the waste of time and money these Grippins will be if they have no air-air refueling. This means they cant strike further than what they need to and if they have to, will they be able to get back to their bases. Wait.....I know what they can do, they can land on the M1 North and they can refuel ay the Mobil station and the pilot can get a coke and meat pie while Jacob fills up the aircraft with premium and charge it to Gen. Gagiano. Wake up Carlos, what is going on.

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have a nice day,

Jan

The airforce squadron that refuels fighters, such as the Cheetah and the new Gripen, in the air will probably be closed.

This will mean that South Africa, as the only African state south of the Sahara with this capability, will not be able to perform this function after 2010.

The airforce said this week that the final decision for the possible closing of 60 Squadron at AFB Waterkloof rests with the Department of Defence.

The capability will only be regained when the airforce receives the new Airbus A400M after 2010. According to Helmoed-Römer Heitman, military commentator, the closure means that the airforce may have to curb the use of it's fighters in foreign operations.

"The airforce canot use the Gripens without airborne refuelling tankers. On top of that, one of the motivations for the purchase of the Gripen was that the Gripen would be an asset for Africa to use in foreign operations."

This will mean, according to insiders, that the Gripen will be able to fly from the Louis Trichardt airforce base to the border and maybe back. But nowhere further.

Heitman says that that A400M is not the ideal aircraft for in-flight refuelling because the top speed of the aircraft was near the minimum speed of the fighter, making refuelling very difficult.

Heitman said "it is short-sighted to disband 60 Squadron and phase out the Boeing 707".

One of the options the airforce had to take into consideration was the offer by the Brazilian airforce to undertake part of their in-flight refuelling training in South Africa.

When the Gripen was purchased, the Swedish fighter did not have an in-flight refuelling capability. The equipment had to be specially incorporated into the aircraft, as it was essential due to the long distances the aircraft would have to fly.

The first Gripens wil lbe delivered next year. According to Heitman, the Brazilian offer was 'bizarre'.

The Squadrons Boeing is also used for to transport freight for the deployment and support of South African troops deployed internationally. The United Nations reimburses the defence force for the use of the aircraft and the squadron thus generates its own operating funds.

According to insiders, the aircraft is still cheaper to operate than hiring charter aircraft such as the Ilyushin 76 for the supporting flights

I have always had a lot of respect for Heitman, but that statement makes no sense. First, Gripen has successfully refuelled from C-130s without any serious issues. In fact, the Swedish air force will be using C-130s for their tanker needs. A400M is significantly faster than the C-130 in both cruise and max speed. For both the C-130 and A400M their cruise speeds are way, way above the minimum speed of Gripen. Of course, "not ideal" is a qualitative statement, but A400M will serve its purpose.

The Boeings are getting almost impossible to keep airworthy - the SAAF does not have much choice in retiring them. If the first A400M deliveries occur more or less according to the planned schedule, the lack of tankers will only be temporary. In fact, leasing from someone else in the meantime or making an agreement with another air force as suggested in the article may actually not be such a bad idea.



An obvious exaggeration (depending on which borders they are talking about) - I wonder who these "insiders" are, because it doesnt look like they are anyone directly involved with the Gripen.



More of these anonymous "insiders"...

Nice reply. I also have great respect for Heitman, so it's worth being wary of there being misquoting or words taken out of context. I often see reasonable statements by respected analysts coming out rather mangled thanks to inept journalists. Not saying that necessarily happened in this case, but I'd just warn against jumping to conclusions.

In terms of the A400M, it is significantly slower than jet aerial-refueling aircraft such as the A330 MRTT (which cruises about 120km/h faster). Might this not result in a more restricted operations envelope, making it unable to refuel Gripens at the upper limit of their MTOW? This may be what Heitman was referring to, if true. Still, I agree with you that the A400Ms will serve their purpose. They won't be as good as proper tankers, but they'll probably be sufficient.



Part of that is due to chronic underfunding in past years, with the SAAF not quite being willing to spend what's required to maintain the capability (though to be fair, money is tight). If the 707s really are such a maintenance hassle that they can't be kept going until the A400Ms arrive, I suppose there's not much that can be done about it but I'm still perturbed by the temporary loss in capability. I also doubt we'll see the SAAF lease a tanker from another air force.


You'd think a defence correspondent would know that the base is still called AFB Makhado, as it did not revert back with the town. And if that's anything to go by as an indication of the piece's accuracy, it's probably a fair bet that the only 'insiders' are a single dodgy source at best.

We've been over this before. The Gripen has sufficient range, if deployed to Hoedspruit or Makhado, to cover the entire north-eastern border area. Moreover, any potential deployments in Africa will likely be to forward air bases and airports well within the aircraft's combat radius. And it's not like we're losing the aeriel-refueling capability altogether; the A400Ms will be in service long before the Gripens are ready for external deployment.



The modern journalist has two best friends: Insiders and anonymous sources. You have much leeway in what you can get away with if you're smart with using them and your editor isn't all that vigilant. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that it's cheaper to maintain two 707s all-year round rather than just chartering Il-76s when necessary. Especially not if they're becoming a maintenance nightmare.

The quote refers to the airbase near the town of Louis Trichardt. Although the base is called AFB Makhado, the town was forced, by court order, to revert its name back to Louis Trichardt a month or so ago so proper consultation can take place.

Agreed on the town, but the base name remains Makhado. It would also be unusual to say "Louis Trichardt airforce base" since nobody says "Pretoria airforce base" when referring to AFB Waterkloof or "Cape Town airforce base" when referring to AFB Ysterplaat, so why the need to use that approach with Makhado? In any case, air force is two words.

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but truth be told I wasn't all that impressed with the article. To claim that the Gripen is capable only of flying to the border and "maybe back" is utterly ludicrous and uninformed. The distance from AFB Makhado to the Zimbabwean border is only 100km at the nearest point and 180km at the furthest point. The Mozambican and Botswanan borders are similarly close. Yet we're expected to believe that even reaching this border is a stretch for our short-legged Gripens?

It's only when you begin talking about the ranges to places like Lusaka, Zambia (880km from Makhado) that aerial refuelling on the return legs probably become necessary. Indeed, it's likely that all of Zimbabwe is within the strike range of Gripens without using aerial refuelling. So unless Erika Gibson is speaking about the Zimbabwe-Zambia border, her article's claims are without merit.

Fact is, we're not likely to require the huge strike ranges that aerial refuelling makes possible, since we're not going to be bombing Lusaka anytime soon. Instead, aerial-refuelling's biggest use to the SAAF is in endurance, allowing Gripens to remain on station to conduct air-to-air patrols and CAS for far longer than would otherwise be the case. Rather than needing to call aircraft up from their bases whenever support was required, the SAAF would be able to maintain a couple CAS-armed aircraft aloft just behind troop positions, providing instant response instead of the ground forces having to wait 30 minutes to an hour. It's this persistent presence that makes aerial-refuelling valuable to the SAAF.

Please do not take the words to literally. The orginal article was in Afrikaans and although my Afrikaans is not that good, I tried to translate the article as best I could. The news articles on my News page states that it is a rough translation.

Apologies for any confusion.

There is no smoke without a fire.

Dean, you need not worry, your translation was fine. I re-read the original Afrikaans article just to be certain, and it definitely made the claims I'm speaking about, with the sentence reading: "Dit sal volgens ingeligtes beteken ’n Gripen sal van die Louis Trichardt-lugmagbasis tot by die grens en miskien terug kan vlieg. Niks verder nie.".

I just want to make clear, I'm not accusing you of anything here and I obviously have nothing against you, it's Erika Gibson's dubious claims (even in Afrikaans) that I find suspect.

Dean, I also would like to reiterate what Darren said. There was nothing wrong with your translation, and the article should be in your news section as it does relate to the SAAF. As I said in the beginning, I also always had a lot of respect for Heitman, and I am fairly convinced that his words were either taken out of context or exaggerated in the reporting. This happened to a friend of mine when interviewed by a Sunday newspaper (it was also aviation related). The report was so different from what he said that he is now basically refusing interviews unless formally requested from "higher ups" to do them.

It is the quality of the original report that I have a problem with. I think we (SAAF / friends of the SAAF / aviation enthusiasts, etc) are all concerned about the current (yet temporary) lack of a tanker and we also acknowledge that the A400M is not the perfect tanker, although I am pretty sure it will serve its purpose. The situation is very far from the complete doom and gloom picture painted by the article though. The ridiculous statement on the Gripen range also doesn't help the journalists credibility, or that of the "insiders".

I must add, although my first language is Afrikaans we do tend to be a pretty pessimistic lot. I think sometimes you should be careful that it doesn't start to feed on itself: write off the "new SAAF" and eventually it will become the mess many say it is sinking into. I try to be positive about such things: accept what you have and use it to its full potential. I also think we sometimes forget we are now sitting with a peacetime SAAF and, lets face it, there are some very pressing social needs that should justifiably be getting a big chunk of the budget. What I would like to see is that over time the SAAF figures out exactly what it should look like and how it should function to get the most out of the limited budget it is receiving. Also remember the better image the SAAF can build for itself (and attitude plays a big role here), the easier it becomes for the DoD to convince the rest of government and the public that they need the funds.

As a final aside, I would like to say I applaud the positive attitude of the young guys on pupe course posting here - if they can maintain that attitude the SAAF will remain the great organization it always has been. Smaller, but no less professional. That is not to say that constructive criticism does not have its place...

And now this!

30 July 2007: Air International

Let's hope it does not slip by too much. Besides the implications for us, Airbus also cannot afford serious delays on A400M while they are still recovering from the A380 delays.

I still think the Boeing is a more superior aircraft.

???, Which boeing? compared to what?. They don't have a military transport equivalent to the A400M? The C17 is much larger (and it is essentially a Douglas aircraft, being developed before the merger).