A tough new Hawk in our skies

By Jeremy Michaels, Leon Engelbrecht and Graeme Hosken

South Africa has unveiled its first Hawk training fighter jet with an awe-inspiring display in the skies over the Cape south coast, marking a new phase of the multi-billion rand arms deal.

Following closely on the arrival of the Navy's first Corvette warship late last year, the Air Force yesterday proudly showed off the first of 24 state-of-the-art Hawks which will be used to train pilots for the country's 28 new Gripen fighter jets. Watched keenly by a select group of senior Air Force officers, a host of dignitaries and hordes of journalists, pilots Dave Stock and Jannie Scott put the Hawk through its paces at the military testing base off Cape Agulhas, about 200km south-east of Cape Town.

As photographers trained their lenses and dassies scampered for cover, Stock and Scott roared past the imposing hangars on the plains of the Overberg, giving residents of nearby Bredasdorp a new aircraft to marvel at. According to the State arms manufacturer Armscor, the Hawk will spend 15 months at the Air Force's Test Flight and Development Centre at Bredasdorp to demonstrate and fine-tune the jet's avionics and weaponry.

The manufacturer, British-based BAE Systems, will continue to own the test jet until it is ready for delivery to the Air Force in mid-2005. BAE would continue to deliver two a month well into 2006 until the Air Force has a full fleet of 24 Hawks. The Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets are due for delivery between 2005 and 2007.

A beaming Lieutenant-General Roelf Beukes, Chief of the Air Force, said the Hawk jets would replace the ageing fleet of 24 Impala trainers and make "a very important contribution" to the operational capabilities of his wing of the National Defence Force.

"We've had the Impala now for 38 years - it's still in good condition but it's becoming very expensive to maintain," Beukes said.

While the Hawk would replace the Impala, the Gripen would replace the "vintage" Cheetah jets which had been in service since the 70s, he said. On why South Africa needed new fighter jets when there was no indication of war, Beukes said while there was no imminent threat, the Constitution mandated the Air Force to be able to protect the country from the air.

"The day you need it you can't just go into a shop and buy it," he said.

January Masilela, head of the civilian Defence Secretariat which oversees the SANDF, said the new Hawk programme would enable the Air Force to implement its affirmative action policies. At least five black and three women pilots would train to become fighter pilots on the Hawks.

On the economic front, BAE Systems would be injecting $680-million into the local economy as part of government's industrial participation requirements for the Hawk project. A Midrand-based company, Advanced Technologies and Engineering, would run the test programme for the Hawk in Bredasdorp.

"It is the first time BAE Systems has ever outsourced an avionics integration contract and it demonstrates the confidence we have in ATE," said Mark Parkinson, head of BAE Systems in South Africa.

South African sub-systems fitted to the Hawk included an ATE-manufactured avionics suite and a health and usage monitoring system (Hums). Local assembly of the Hawk was scheduled to start at Denel in Kempton Park in May.

After the speeches, it was time to see the Hawk in action. It taxied out to the runway, lifted off the ground, did a few circuits around the base and carried out a "touch and go" landing for the entertainment of the media and guests. The aircraft shrilled past the excited crowd before landing and taxiing back to its hangar.

Pretoria News