SAAF reveals plans for Gripen and Hawk

South African Air Force chief Lt Gen Jan Beukes yesterday lifted the veil on his service's plans to re-invent itself for an African 21st Century. Beukes also clarified the role the SAAF's new aircraft as well as its legacy systems would play in this process.

Beukes made it clear that the current air force was too expensive and thus unsustainable. Part of the Service's short term survival plan was to negotiate a bigger slice of the budget. But the SAAF also had to slim down. This meant base closures and unit amalgamations. Beukes said the closure of AFB Ysterplaat in Cape Town, along with the migration of units to Air Force Station (AFS) Cape Town (located at the city's international airport) and AFB Langebaanweg (up the West Coast), was part of the process. AFB Durban, at that city's airport, was also being scaled back to an AFS and part of its helicopter squadron would be based at the recently re-activated AFS Port Elizabeth, half-way between Durban and Cape Town, to save on ferry-costs. Part of the main Pretoria AFB Waterkloof would be commercialised and AFB Swartkop would be totally closed. Once completed the SAAF would operate from five AFBs (excluding Waterkloof) and three AFSs.

Air Force briefer, Brig Gen Phillip Wilcock said the air force was also reducing its inventory to bring it in-line with the 1998 Defence Review force design. In most instances the surplus air frames was to be stored as attrition reserves, but some would be disposed of. The SAAF was planning to reduce its Impala fleet to 24 and its Cheetah fleet to 28. The latest figures available showed an inventory of 48 Impala one- and two-seaters as well as 39 Cheetah one- and two-seaters. The Pilatus Astra fleet was being shrunk from 58 to 40.

Wilcock told the media the SAAF of 2010 was to be affordable and therefore sustainable, built around six core capabilities: air defence, air transport, close air support, aerial surveillance and reconnaissance, maritime operations and operational search-and-rescue. He said the force's characteristics would include regional air superiority and mobility, the capacity for precision engagement, information superiority, agile combat support and flexible operational execution. Whether this will translate into a true Expeditionary Warfare capacity remains to be seen. Since the SAAF will not likely face a foe in friendly skies any time soon but will be deployed north in defence of regional allies or in support of the SA Army in peace support operations, an expeditionary capability should be integral to the SAAF's characteristics.

Beukes said the Hawk and Gripens would operate as single squadrons from separate bases in the northern part of the country. The Gripen's would be posted to the current Cheetah base at AFB Louis Trichardt and the Hawks at AFB Hoedspruit. Asked by DSD whether the Gripen's would be deployed in a single squadron or two, Beukes answered that 28 were not as large a number as one might suppose. "Of the 28, nine will be two-seat trainers, leaving 19, the approximate size of a single squadron. The same applies for the Hawk." Flight testing of the first SAAF Gripen dual-seater was scheduled to commence in Sweden in early-2006. The aircraft would arrive in-country in the middle of 2006 for further tests at the Test Flight and Development Centre (TFDC) in the southern Cape. The remaining dual seaters would be manufactured between November 2007 and September 2009. The single seaters would be delivered from November 2009 to the end of 2011.

Defence Systems Daily