The race is on to find new transporters
Date: 23 January 2014
By Erika Gibson
News about the South African Air Force’s possible plans to buy new transport aircraft or find alternative options for the dire situation for the SANDF to get its troops and equipment deployed, have caused a race with contenders scrambling to South Africa from all directions.
In the past week Lockheed Martin held some urgent negotiations with local opinion formers in the defence industry, while it is known that some Airbus options are also being put together.
What is known, is that the Russians were first through the door and therefore might hold a slight advantage for the moment. However, it is a difficult contest with nobody really knowing how serious the plans are and even more importantly, if the plans can be trusted.
According to Dennys Plessas, vice president business development initiatives at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, the company is “confused” about what exactly South Africa wants.
Everybody thought that there was a specific process to procure military equipment, but in this case there seem to be some off the beaten track. The main question remains if performance or politics will be the deciding factor. If it will be politics, the race becomes even more complicated.
Plessas says the United States have every possible option available for South Africa to buy American aircraft. All it needs is a government to government request and even payment will be staggered for a buy-now-pay-much-later option. Payment can even start in a few years’ time.
“We have access to the production orders and should South Africa decide today that it urgently need two or three Hercules C130J’s we can always negotiate with one of our bigger customers to wait a bit longer for their orders,” he explains.
“We have sent a number of proposals to the Department of Defence. If South Africa has a specific need, we are willing to bend backwards to help. A hasty decision now will however lead to a lot of regret later on and then it is too late.”
Lockheed Martin bases its offer on the fact that the SAAF has been using C130’s for the past 50 years. It therefore has the infrastructure which only needs to be adapted for the much more advanced avionics of the J model.
The aircrew also would only need to have the minimal conversion training on the new aircraft instead of learning a totally new way of flying an aircraft the Russian way.
“The problem is that we do not know if the SAAF’s needs have changed. We understand what it has been doing in peacekeeping for the past decade and longer. We also understand that heavy lift is necessary to place troops and equipment in theatre. But then the C130s have been doing the regular log runs transporting smaller numbers of people and support equipment for the duration.
“Almost 95% of the regular SAAF flying work can be done with a C130. We say for the small percentage of heavy lift it makes more sense to then charter a bigger aircraft.
“If something like the Ilyushin 76 is however what the SANDF wants, we can help them with super lift and then it can be utilized by the whole region for deployments. The American Air Force has a number of C-5A Galaxies which are being withdrawn from service. They still have many flying hours on their clocks. We can strip and upgrade it with the latest avionics and make it available for a fraction of the price of most new aircraft in its class.
“Then you can move a whole squadron of helicopters and 128 tonnes at a time. And if the SAAF is not using it, it can make it available to another African country for deployments. In a case such as the current United Nations (UN) deployment in the DRC countries are working together in one force anyway.
“Fact is that this will only be available in a government to government deal as the Galaxies are not sold commercially. A combination of C130J’s and a C-5 will put South Africa in a better position than it has been in a long time.”
It is understood what is confusing the situation is that should aircraft be bought, it will be bought on a Joint Operations requirement and it is not clear what these requirements are except that it needs to move a lot very fast and on short notice.
It is further understood that Airbus and its partners might be putting some out of the box options for the A400M together as well. These are not known yet, but there seems to be quite a bit of scrambling behind the scene underway.
How serious the SANDF really is to buy aircraft in the run-up to the elections next year is an open question. With the hearings and investigations into the multi billion rand arms deal still underway after ten years, no politician who would like to remain a politician will take chances with another controversial deal.
Source: African Armed Forces
