Gripen 03 and 04 arrive in Cape Town
Date: 13 August 2008
The third and fourth SAAB Gripen dual-seat fighters arrived in Table Bay Harbour, Cape Town at mid-day today.
Gripen D dual-seaters 03 and 04 were offloaded at Cape Town docks. They were then towed the short distance through the streets of Maitland and Brooklyn suburbs to AFB Ysterplaat. The aircraft were towed by tractors, surrounded by traffic police and support cars. It only took 30 minutes to cover the distance with minor disruption to traffic. The aircraft are due to depart AFB Ysterplaat the next day.
It is believed that the two aircraft have already been accepted by South Africa, hence the use of SAAF personnel to transport the aircraft.
South Africa ordered seventeen single-seat Gripen C and nine dual-seat Gripen D fighters in 1998. The first of the type for the SAAF, Gripen D 01 (c n 39-2801/`ZA01') made its first flight on 11 November 2005 at Linkoping, Sweden. It was then shipped to South Africa following an initial 25 hours of flight-testing in Sweden. It arrived in Cape Town on 16 July 2006 and continued its test program at AFB Overberg, home of the SAAF Test Flight and Development Centre (TFDC). The development test program was completed in November 2007 after a total of 199 sorties.
The second Gripen D, 02, arrived in Cape Town on 9 March 2008. This aircraft is now based at AFB Makhado. The Gripen fleet will fly with 2 Squadron at AFB Makhado.
Report and photos by Dean Wingrin.
