The SAAF Forum

I'm trying to figure out a few things.

Below from Spice in the SA Military Air Ops: Today in History thread for February 1962:
"Reports indicated that the SAAF had investigated the acquisition of eight Victor B1s, later changed to B Mk2s. The allocated SAAF serials: 8001 to 8008. The aircraft were delivered to the RAF as XH587 to XH594."

Does anyone have any further info in the South African history of interest in the Handley Page Victor?

Quite correct. The SAAF was interested in the Victor and eight aircraft were being seriously considered. There were a number of meetings and discussions and eventually on 5 July 1962 Air Force Headquarters advised Handley Page that interest in the aircraft had "fallen away"! Canberras were ordered as interim bombers which were to be replaced by the Buccaneers once they became operational. However, as history shows, both the Canberras and Buccaneers soldiered on together and served the SAAF well. With 20/20 hindsight, the Cans and Buccs together were a better choice for the operations flown by the SAAF.

Hi.
Post war South Africa was considering helping the UK to have a reaction Force to operate over the whole sub- Saharan Africa. For this we would have needed the Victors due to their range and payload. Some political factors eventually decided that we would not form such a force, and the Victor deals were laughed off.

Thanks guys.
I was asking as I was interested in how far discussions/proposals got.
In context, there was an interesting bit of info I saw that in the late 80's South Africa was looking at extra Boeing 707 airframes to use as a standoff weapons platform, for a MUPSOW type weapon. In light of that, the interest a couple of decades earlier in the Victor was interesting.