SA Air Force flying by the seat of its pants

Graeme Hosken

Collapsing buildings, ageing and overworked aircraft, uncertainty around aircraft procurement programmes and shrinking strategic manpower are leaving the South African Air Force with its wings clipped.

Over the past eight years 298 pilots have resigned from the SAAF along with 1 684 technical non-commissioned and commissioned officers.

The alarming figures were announced in Pretoria on Friday by SAAF chief, Lieutenant-General Carlo Gagiano, hours before officiating over a wings parade at Swartkop Air Field where 19 pilots were awarded their wings.

Gagiano said while the SAAF was pleased with the new recruits, they could not replace the years and years of experience which had been lost.

'It is simply impossible'

"The concern is that a new recruit cannot overnight replace a person with 10 years' experience. It is simply impossible," Gagiano said.

"Our problem is that we simply cannot recruit fast enough,"he said.

We believe a solution to the manpower problem is the decentralising of recruitment so that each arm of service can focus on their own selection, which is what we have been planning for.

"By doing this we know exactly what kind of recruits we need and can ensure that those that we attract to the air force are the right men and women and not someone who is going to fade out of the course halfway through.

"Another way of retaining the vitally needed skills is through the reserve force. We are currently working on programmes with the various major players in the aviation industry to ensure that those who do leave still serve the air force through the reserves," he said.

He added that critical questions needed to be asked about the increasing losses, "which are not sustainable.

"At this stage most things are against us and we need to act fast to stop this situation," he said.

On the state of aircraft, especially among the SAAF's transport fleet, Gagiano said the youngest aircraft was at least 46 years old while the oldest was 75 years old.

"While we are not the only air force to fly ageing aircraft we are currently operating extremely old planes," he said in reference to the SAAF's ageing C130 heavy-lift transport aircraft fleet, which is due to be replaced by the A400M.

Meanwhile, there have been significant delays in the delivery date and the first A400M is now expected to arrive only in 2014.

Gagiano also said there were serious concerns about a number of buildings, especially in Pretoria.

Waterkloof air rorce base is undergoing a multimillion-rand upgrade because of sinkholes and poor soil conditions which were damaging the runways and threatening hangars and other buildings at the base.

Gagiano said another structure under threat was the Durban air force base, which could currently only operate helicopters as there was limited access to runways.

"What is compounding this problem is that the Public Works Department is going to take five years to complete our logistical needs for a new base at Durban's La Mercy airport (the new airport that will replace Durban's current one)."

Source: The Mercury