New award added to SAAF prestige list
Date: 18 July 2025
There’s another award for SA Air Force (SAAF) personnel to strive for – the Free the Eagle Innovation trophy – aimed at encouraging out-of-the-box thinking leading to innovations that will “propel” the airborne service of the SA National Defence Force forward.
The addition to the list was made public by SAAF Chief Lieutenant General Wiseman Mbambo at the annual prestige awards event last week. The awards form part of the annual SAAF Prestige Day, held on the closest Friday to 1 February, widely accepted as the founding date of the now 105 year-old air force. Events in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where South African soldiers died while detached to a Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping mission saw the SAAF awards and its associated parade and flypast postponed to, as it turned out, Friday, 11 July.
Air Force Base (AFB) Hoedspruit is the first recipient of the innovation trophy. Reporting on the awards, Ad Astra journalist Sergeant Tshimolloyabotshelo Matsha, provides no information on the innovation/s that earned the Limpopo base the trophy.
21 Squadron, the SAAF VIP transport unit at AFB Waterkloof, was named the best flying unit with the best air force base award going to AFB Overberg in Western Cape province. Other award winners, in no particular order, are Directorate Supply Systems (best directorate); 2 Air Servicing Unit (ASU) at AFB Langebaanweg and a detached component at AFB Ysterplaat (best ASU); 526 Squadron at AFB Langebaanweg (best protection squadron); Lowveld Air Space Sector (best operational support unit); Central Flying School (CFS), AFB Langebaanweg (best training unit); AFB Waterkloof (best fire and rescue services); and Air Publications Centre (best general support unit).
Addressing award winners and guests at the SA National War College (SANWC) in Irene, Centurion, Mbambo is reported as saying: “Our people have performed well under difficult conditions to keep some of our assets in the air”.
He noted further “despite” constraints, the SAAF is “still dependable – there is no reason to doubt our ability to defend them when the need arises”.
Republished with permission of defenceWeb.
