Airforce upbeat on its future
Date: 28 January 2011
By Dean Wingrin
"For the South African Air Force, the year 2010 - SAAF 90, was a year of achievement in the face of significant challenges." These were the words of Chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Carlo Gagiano, in his address at the annual Air Force Day Parade held on Friday 28 January 2011 at the Zwartkop airfield near Pretoria.
In his address, Gagiano made mention of a number of achievements during the past year. The most publicly recognised must be the SAAF's contribution to Operation Kgwele, the Defence Force security participation in the FIFA Soccer World Cup. Gagiano mentioned that more than 2 000 airforce personnel were utilised for this operation, 2 318 hours were flown (including 400 combat air patrols), almost 65 000 flight authorisations were issued and 12 921 civilian pilots were screened. The SAAF, Gagiano said, achieved "a substantially higher than expected aircraft availability during Operation Kgwele, purely through the dedication of the focused and revitalised personnel concerned."
Significant progress had been made during 2010 with regard to the development and integration of air-to-air missiles on the Hawk and Gripen. This involved the test-firing of the new IRIS-T from a Gripen in June 2010 and the first developmental test-firing of the A-Darter missile which will be integrated onto both the Gripen and Hawk. A helmet-mounted capability will also be added to the Hawk.
A further highlight was the training of new aircrew for the Gripen, allowing existing Gripen pilots to be transferred to 85 Combat Flying School (Hawk) and the Central Flying School as instructors.
The loss of highly skilled air and ground personnel has long been a challenge to the airforce. This past year has been kind to the SAAF, with Gagiano particularly happy that the loss rates had dropped significantly during 2010. Only 15 pilots had resigned during the past year. The figure for 2009 was 20, while 48 pilots resigned in 2008. A total of 94 technical Non-Commissioned Officers resigned in 2010, the same as in 2009, compared to 200 in 2008. Similarly, eight Air Traffic Controllers had resigned, compared to eight in 2009 and eleven in 2008.
While Gagiano attributed this partially to the improvement of salaries, he also recognised that the poor general economic situation would also have played a role in personnel retention. "Hawk ground technician training is now well established. Furthermore, a further 20 Gripen ground crew completed their training towards the end of last year," Gagiano continued.
Despite only losing 94 technicians instead of the planned 297, the SAAF still faces a serious skills shortage. This is because the loss of a technician with 20 years experience cannot be replaced by someone with just two years experience. "Unfortunately, this ongoing leakage of technical expertise is still sufficiently significant to adversely effect aircraft availability, but this is a world-wide phenomenon in the aviation field," Gagiano explained.
"We are struggling to recruit properly, but the other services also have a problem,"
Another challenge facing the SAAF, still personnel related, is the shortage of experienced pilots in the helicopter squadrons. With the exodus of experienced aircraft commanders, the squadrons have a large number of junior co-pilots. Gagiano commented that this is "exacerbated by the below optimum flying available for junior co-pilots, which is not conducive to flying safety and which also slows down their career progression." As a result, career planning, for all members, will be addressed during 2011.
The transport fleet has previously been acknowledged as being in urgent need of replacement. However, the airforce has had to reprioritise its requirements in line with those of the Defence Force. Gagiano said that the airforce has had to take a step back and re-evaluate its needs. Thus, there will be no decision made on new transport aircraft, either to replace current capability or new strategic capabilities that the now-cancelled A400M would have provided. With most transport aircraft ranging in age from 21 to 75 years old, the large elephant in the room that no one wanted to mention (lack of funds) is still making itself felt in a large way.
The Parade is held on or as close to 1 February, the day the SAAF was established in 1920. The Parade commenced with a drive-past of SAAF rescue, support and mobile-radar vehicles and concluded with very impressive mass formation flypasts. The display then concluded with an Air Capability Demonstration.
For the third successive year, the Air Force Prestige Unit of the year for 2010 went to 2 Air Servicing Unit, headquartered at AFB Langebaanweg. The aim of the SAAF annual awards competition is to give recognition to those SAAF units and personnel who have achieved the best results within a given period. 2 ASU also received the Air Force Air Servicing Unit of the Year award and the bronze certificate for the Royal Air Force Training Award.
With the recent appointment of a new executive team under the Chief of the Airforce and the restructuring of the airforce to comply with the more efficient Air Staff 1 to 9 concept, it seems that the SAAF has, at last, turned the corner. All the Airforce needs to do now is convince the politicians that it deserves the budget to provide its core services and survive.
