Come the fourth month of 2026 on Wednesday (1 April), newly minted Lieutenant General Carl Moatshe takes over as SA Air Force (SAAF) Chief from Lieutenant General Wiseman Mbambo, who is retiring on 31 March.

Moatshe exits the Chief Director Force Preparation post to – figuratively – move into the left hand cockpit seat of the airborne service of the SA National Defence Force in Dequar Road on the western side of the Pretoria central business district (CBD).

Prior to being Chief Director Force Preparation, Moatshe served as Director Air Transport and Maritime Systems. Other terms of duty saw him at Air Force Base (AFB) Waterkloof as Officer Commanding (OC) 28 Squadron, where he was rated PIC (pilot in command) for a five-year plus period on the long-serving C-130BZ Hercules, and after that as OC AFB Ysterplaat as a Brigadier General. The Cape Town base was in two successive years named the best performing base in the SAAF under his stewardship.

During his stint at “Ysters”, as the base is affectionately and widely known, Moatshe headed a base wide gender programme of which the SAAF publication Ad Astra reports him saying it was – at that time – the biggest programme he had been part of. Ad Astra further has him paying tribute to his immediate predecessor (Mbambo) and Fabian “Zakes” Msimang, the three-star who was the first SAAF staffer of colour to head the force. “I was fortunate to have worked closely with both men” and have them as mentors, as per Ad Astra.

He headed a delegation to Brazil’s Embraer Aerospace early last year to evaluate the KC-390 Millennium for the SAAF in the wake of one of twin-engined transports visiting South Africa for demonstration purposes as well as being at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) exhibition in 2024. It was reported the SAAF delegation also visited Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano production facility. The SAAF’s South America visit was seemingly a factor in an April 2025 memorandum of understanding (MoU) committed to between State-owned South African defence and technology conglomerate Denel and Embraer focusing on the KC-390 as a possible replacement for the C-130BZ.

Moatshe wrote and passed his matric at Lethabong High School in Pretoria and has, according to open source information, completed a business orientation qualification at what was the Wits Technikon, now part of the University of Johannesburg (UJ). He is on record as saying attendance at a formative staff course in Zambia was a turning point in his approach to leadership and his perspective on Pan-African issues.

Replacing Moatshe as Chief Director Force Preparation will be Brigadier General Isaac Moreetsi, who is being promoted to Major General with effect from 1 April.

 

Republished with permission of DefenceWeb.