Air Cover

The Citizen newspaper of the 14th October 2009 had a long article about our lack of air defence capabilities. The usual 'numerous sources' was used, as well as some so called expert from Jane's Defence Weekly, who made comments, that upon investigation, turned out to be utter rubbish. He contends that no missiles have been developed for the new SAAB JAS39 Gripen fighters, which South Africa have purchased. According to numerous websites, this is not the case, with an array of missiles, including air to air and water skimming anti-ship missiles, are readily available. Think the point is, no missiles have been purchased by our Air Force yet. (above is a picture of a Gripen with the missiles that have yet to be designed)

Since the purchase of these aircraft began, it has been clouded in controversy. Firstly a report was submitted to parlaiment, by none other than Shamin 'Chippy' Shaik (brother of the other esteemed Shaik, who is now seconds away from meeting the Grim-Reaper we hear- Shabir) while he acted (there is an accurate word) as Defence Aquistions Chief. He cleverly persuaded the power that sign the cheques, that our current flock of Cheetah aircraft was obsolete.
In 1999, a R60 Billion deal was approved to purchase new planes and weaponry.
Turns out the Cheetah Fighter (Picture below this paragraph)was, and still is not yet obsolete- Ecuador is purchasing  a minimum of 12 and Chile want 9 more. With maintenance plans from Denel, till 2015. Obsolete my.......well, I have my doubts.

Further research revealed that a number of countries are investigating Gripen deals, namely Britain, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden and the USA. The allegations that governement official have been bribed in many deals relating to the purchase of Gripens. The Czech republic are far into an investigation about the purchase of Gripens and high levelled government officials have been named.
The name Shaik pops up with regard to our military deal.....and a number of others who will not be touched, involved or not.

The point of this article is not to investigate the shadey dealings of the people in high places though. It is to gasp at the frightening reality that currently, we have no air to air capability to speak of.
Instead of using funds to maintain the Cheetah C (Which in Air Combat Maneuvering Excercises, compared favourably to the F15), a plane which is obviously in operational standard, 'the powers' decide to mothball them and buy a new fleet of shiney new Gripens.
Of course nobody sat down to realise that, when you retire your fleet of old planes, the new fleet should be battle ready before you send the old ones to fighter heaven.

In a move that makes NO sense, we have however, purchased missiles for the Hawk trainer. (Pictured below paragraph) A plane with a relatively low top speed, and with no hope of out manauvering or intercepting any other fighter aircraft. In need, this is all we have!
The crest of the air force wave, the Gripen, has no missiles and it seems there is no plan in the near future, to purchase missiles either.

There are about two Cheetahs, that are used for airshows, that could be used in need. But, in another brilliant defence move, SAAF have retired the Boeing refuelling tankers- so, we have aircraft that have a very short range.
Then it comes to the lack of trained pilots, which is a well known problem. Coupled with poor maintenance, the Air Force paintbrush does not paint a rosey picture. I have spoken to many retired SAAF personell and they describe a grim scenario.

We are lucky at the moment that we have no immenent threat to our skies. But we have been warned by experts of terrorist activity during the 2010 (hope I can use those numbers without being sued by FIFA). Should some bright spark, who modelled his terrorist career on the Twin Towers pilots, decide to use a packed stadium as a landing strip- we are pretty screwed.