The SAAF Forum

I was not happy with the slow and sometimes over conservative way things were managed at Atlas and I resigned a while after the F1 Chaff & Flare episode. I joined a small specialist company, Advanced Aeronautics, based in a suburb of Pretoria in a nondescript brown brick building. They were often used by the SAAF as a 'thinktank'.

We bid on an Armscor contract to design and fit the latest chaff and flare equipment (similar to the cartridges developed for the ventral fins on the F1) for the Cheetah. Our Cheetahs were absed on the Mirage III D/D2, E, & R2. The lower aft fuselage on these various models were not all the same, but the SAAF wanted one design of the system to be fitted to all the Cheetahs. I had an idea and we put in a bid. We won the contract and I think it was the first time that the SAAF/Armscor gave such a substantial contract to a small private company.

My idea was based on the fact that our original Mirage III E and D2 had a removable lower aft fueltank. In one configuration the tank carried regular jet fuel and a rear looking bomb camera to film the target after bomb release. In the other configuration the aft lower fuel tank could be replaced with one that carried a very caustic Rocket Fuel and a rocket motor in the back to give a very short take-off run in hot & high conditions or which could help the A/C attain very high altitudes. The Swiss regularly flew their Mirage IIIS to 50000' and more with this installation.

We did not have windtunnel data of the Mirage III but we had all the drawings, including the Rocket Assisted tank, so we knew the aero data from this configuration. If we could design the new Chaff & Flare installation within the external envelope of this tank/rocket motor layout, we would have the same performance as with the original Dassault cleared configuration. Once this design was done for the A/C that originally had the exchangeable tanks, we designed an adaptation for the aircraft that did not originally carry the Rocket assisted version. We rented a small workshop in Pretoria North amongs some crappy little backyard 'engineering works' and built the prototypes there. TVOS did the testflights. There was no performance degradation on the A/C and the chaff/flare ejected as required and once approved, all the Cheetahs were outfitted with our installation.

I saw later that the Cheetah C adopted a version of our original design.

Never in my career working on Cheetah Cs have i seen a C flying without a probe and there is no blankoff for a C like on the duals

Casper die Spook:

CHEETAH Duals internal fuel was 2910 lt. Externals for wings is supersonic tanks 550 lt and 1300 lt long range tanks. For centreline there is a 826 lt tank. CHEETAH C internal fuel is 3160 lt. External wing was also supersonic tanks but on the long range tanks it was 1300 lt or 1700 lt tanks for the wings and belly was 825 lt or 1300 lt. The difference between Duals and Cs internal fuel is that the C has got a upperbay tank behind the avionic bay of 250 lt.

On full afterburner it burns 1 US gallon a second (Main engine at 100% with afterburner operating a 100%).

yes you can fit Cheetah C main landing gear to a Mir 111 wing. The landing gear is fitted in the wing on the main spar of the wing, bearings all the same. The 3 door setup is smaller, 2 small doors on the leg. One swing on a hinge and te other one is fixed to the leg, main door got an small mod with a extention. Smaller doors that fit next to each other on the leg thus less drag. The new 16t leg is also longer for more load. But fits into the same bay as the old led by means of a shortning rod. New carbon brakes with new tyres as well. Old tyres was 12 ply and new tyres is 18 ply.

The 3 door setup wil not work on the old leg. 1 of the 2 small doors is attached to the 16t leg by 4 bolts on special brackets that is not on the 13t legs.

Denel will still keep the following airframes once the Draken deal is done: 849, 852, 853, 861, 351 and 352

Four duals and two C's.

Of all these only 861 is currently serviceable