The Eagle is soaring
Date: 1 February 2014
By Erika Gibson
He calls his first 18 months a “baptism of fire” and nobody would disagree with him.
Lt.Genl. Zakes Msimang, Chief of the SA Air Force (SAAF), says he thinks he has made it through the worst beginning anyone newly appointed in this position could have imagined possible.
Two terrible aircraft accidents happened just as he took over: a C-47 Dakota crashed in the Drakensberg shortly after another one of these old birds had a hard landing and landed up in a ditch at Mthatha Airport. All eleven crew members were killed on impact. Shortly thereafter another horror accident followed in the Kruger National Park when an Agusta 109 crashed shortly after sunset. Five more people including two Special Forces operators died.
There was also the decision to end the Atlas Manpower Group of Denel’s contract and with it hundreds of highly technically skilled and loyal workers lost their jobs. And just as things were quieting down, Gupta-gate happened at Waterkloof Air Force Base!
Not one of these made Msimang popular and for some he became the face to blame despite the fact that he probably inherited most of the problems.
“I wanted to find my feet, get my plans well thought through and know where the SAAF is going before I wanted to go on record,” he says. Of all the rumors and whisperings on the grapevine about the SANDF’s top structure being about to undergo some changes either before or after the election, Msimang seems unperturbed about. He is on a mission to change and that on the eve of the SAAF’s 94th birthday.
“It is all about capacity building. We can be small as long as we’re extremely good. I would like to see that every officer is graduated and every non-commissioned officer is just as well qualified,” he says.
For that the whole approach to training and education within the SAAF is going to change.
The Air Force College will become a centre of air power where all the different courses will be centered on the SAAF’s core business: flying and aviation.
“It must become something like an Air Academy which can be compared to similar colleges abroad.”
He wants the controlling staff and students to move their families to the college as a centre of support for them at the same time. He wants to rekindle the concept of an Air Force family with people who care about one another and who support their fellow airmen’s families in difficult times.
The road a new recruit – be it a prospective pilot or another mustering – would follow, is also probably going to change. All will do basic training together. During this time the officers’ material will be identified as well as the junior leaders.
“I am committed to send 60 SAAF members per year to the Military Academy (in Saldanha). In three years’ time we will have 180 officers at the Academy and a continuous flow of newly graduated officers moving into the system.
“We need to get our pride back despite all our setbacks and financial woes. Just because we have limited funding does not mean we cannot qualify ourselves better, nor can we ever sit back and give up.”
All prospective pilots will graduate from the Academy before moving on to flying school. By doing this the lazy and the ambitious ones will be identified at an early stage. And if you don’t complete your degree, you won’t be training to fly.
On an operational level a shake-up is also in the making. Flying training must be approached in a more logical and financially sensible way.
“Why does a helicopter pilot need to go and do his instructor training in Langebaanweg if he can do it at the helicopter flying school? We have to have flatter and faster means of achieving our goals,” Msimang says.
He admits that he has gone through a number of trials and made a few errors along the way, but he is confident that he has surrounded himself with a number of excellent support staff who is “willing to go the extra mile”.
“I had to crawl before I could start running and that I am doing – literally as well!” Msimang admits that he is getting back to his own basics as well by jogging every morning at 04h30.
“I have to lead by example and to do that I need to be fit.”
He brought in Col. Wessie Janse van Rensburg, former Commanding Officer (OC) of the Air Force College to help out as his Personal Staff Officer. He appointed Trienie Buys, who has served as the secretary of a number of senior generals in the past few decades to run his office. The media office is back in the hands of Brig.Genl. Marthie Visser and Col. Danie van der Westhuizen, while Col. Willie van Aswegen, the former OC of 22 Squadron in Cape Town, will be the driving force of the Air Force College.
“I want my pilots on exchange programmes with air forces worldwide. They need to get exposure to best practices and there is so much we can learn from other countries. Remember that capacity building now is the key to our success in future.”
Where he will get the aircraft to keep his force flying, is another matter but he reckons while the acquisition processes are underway to get new capabilities, it is the ideal time to reorganize and restructure the organization.
“Underfunding will be a given forever more. We can complain about it or we can live with it while planning. The moment you start taking it on as a challenge it actually becomes exciting to find ways of working around it.
“Remember that our motto is Per aspera ad astra (through adversity to the stars). We have a tradition of excelling despite problems.”
Back to the problem of ageing aircraft and a lack of funding, Msimang says strategic lift and transport aircraft are the top priority for the SAAF to continue to support the SANDF.
“It takes 5 – 10 years to procure new aircraft and train people to utilize it. We are going through the prescribed motions now to upgrade our fleet. We do the technical studies and then it is over to the Chief of the SANDF and his Command Council to take it further.
“Pilots would have loved to have new aircraft yesterday already, but it is just not possible within the restrictions of our budget. All the time we are also looking at ways to find solutions outside the box within the bigger aviation community and industry – to work together instead of duplicating capabilities.”
Msimang says he had to deal with the horrors of the two accidents in the past year, but there was also the immense satisfaction to see the Rooivalk attack support helicopters performing exceptionally well in their first peace intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
There was a lot of blood, sweat and guts so far and no doubt there will be lots more – but at least he will be fit enough to tackle them.
Source: AAF
