Just 8 Top Guns to fly our R27billion fighters

The South African government ordered 26 Gripen C/D fighter aircraft in 1999, courtesy of the taxpayer, remember? the multibillion-rand arms deal? Who could forget! The SAAF Gripen force, although still not formally operational, conducted a part of the air policing during the FIFA soccer World Cup. When the president of Brazil turned up to cheer on his side at the World Cup, SA was ready. A flight of South African Air Force Gripen jets buzzed the stadium. Showing off for the man! Pitching the Gripen with Football. No mean feat, we're really making strides hey. And it only keeps getting better... now the air force is in trouble, being unable to operate the Hawks or the Gripens properly. Why? You guessed it - insufficient funds! The situation is so bad that some aircraft, most importantly the Gripen Advanced Light Fighter Aircraft, may have to be mothballed. We now face the grim prospect of having an air force ‘without wings’. The Gripen mothballing threat follows reports that the air force’s Rooivalk attack helicopters have also been grounded, and that the 12 Rooivalks in 16 Squadron had been put in storage outside Bloemfontein and were not flying.

THE SA Air Force (SAAF) has only eight fully trained fighter pilots and two navigators for its 26 Gripen fighter jets, which cost the country about R19.908 billion to buy.

This was revealed yesterday by Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu in a written reply to a parliamentary question by Freedom Front Plus defence spokesman Pieter Groenewald.


(Pic) - South African Air Force Gripens fly past one of the World Cup stadiums.

Last month the air force invoked “national security” to avoid telling MPs how many fully trained combat pilots it had to fly its multi-billion-rand Gripen fighter (R19.908 billion) and Hawk fighter-trainer aircraft (R7.2 billion) - making for a combined R27.01 billion.

SAAF air capability planning director Brigadier-General Wiseman Mbambo told members of Parliament’s defence portfolio committee in a briefing that “inadequate funding” of the Hawk and Gripen combat systems had placed these “in the balance”, and the SAAF “has not been able to generate the required number of flying hours and re-provision the systems adequately”.

This prompted at least two MPs to ask about the number of qualified combat pilots available for the Hawks and Gripens.

Responding, Mbambo said: “It’s digging into the actual capability that we have.”

He asked the then-committee chairman Nyami Booi to be excused from answering on grounds of national security, and Booi agreed.

Mbambo had revealed that the SAAF’s budget allocation for 2009/10 had been R3.1bn, of which R1.6bn was for personnel and R1.5bn for operations.

Groenewald said yesterday that it was “worrying that South Africa had 30 fighter pilots in 2005 and 20 fighter pilots in 2008. Now we only have eight”.

“We however purchased 26 Gripen fighter jets, but 18 of these will be locked away in a store.”