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The South African Air Force's Denel Rooivalk attack helicopters may return to the sky some times later “this year” after having been grounded in November. Brigadier General Norman Minne, the Director Air Force Acquisition in the Defence Materiel Division of the Defence Secretariat says the rotorcraft will next year also shed its project status.

Minne did not specify if “this year” was a reference to the calendar or state financial year. The latter runs from April 1 to March 31. The SAAF currently owns 12 of the helicopters and 11 are airworthy. The twelth was damaged in 2005 and was not repaired for a lack of funds. By 2007 Project Impose – the Rooivalk programme – had cost taxpayers at least R8.1 billion in research, development and production costs.

The air force acquisitions director says the Rooivalk fleet was grounded in November “due to some specific issues regarding the engineering support of the aircraft”. The aircraft was notably absent from the massive air defence effort to safeguard the June-July soccer World Cup and did not feature in this February's SA Army airborne capability Exercise Young Eagle, as is usually the case.

It has been suggested variously that the Rooivalk was a “turkey”, a dud and a “dinosaur that survived its mass extinction”. But without Rooivalk much of today’s South African aviation industry would not exist. Developing a viable local aviation industry was as much a strategic objective of the greater Rooivalk programme as developing a helicopter that could smash Cuban-crewed Soviet tanks on the Angolan savannah. The Rooivalk was indeed conceived in the 1980s as a tank-buster operating in a high-threat, high-intensity environment of the type the SA Defence Force imagined for Cold War southern Africa in the 1990s. That world never materialised as a consequence of the end of the Soviet Union and South Africa’s transition to nonracial democracy.

The programme was approved in March 1984 and followed an earlier project study that in 1976 culminated in the development of the “Alpha XH1” prototype based on the Alouette III light utility helicopter. In addition to destroying enemy tanks and other armoured vehicles, tasks for the planned fleet of 36 – three squadrons – included escorting and supporting heliborne raiding forces, assisting ground forces, conducting counterinsurgency, engaging in air-to-air combat, anti-shipping attack and reconnaissance tasks in addition to carrying out interdiction work against convoys, personnel, logistics and command sites in the enemy rear area.

The first prototype achieved first flight on February 11, 1990 and the first aircraft was delivered to the SAAF on May 7, 1998. Minne says the project team met defence minster Lindiwe Sisulu “earlier this year also to define exactly what we want to deliver. This has had led to interaction with the Air Force and through [state arms acquisition agency] Armscor with Denel … the original equipment manufacturer of the aircraft to clear up some specific issues.

“Whilst this has been ongoing, various activities have been on the go between the project teams. The first thing was for Denel Aviation to complete the process of obtaining type certification for the baseline at which the aircraft will be delivered. That process has been ongoing, a lot of it is paperwork to present the Air Force, the DoD project team, with the required evidence of conformity that will have to be presented to the Military Airworthiness Board. At the same time the project team sat down to look at the breakdown structure, schedules, spares lists, etcetera, outstanding in order to ensure we can have some flying activity within the Air Force by April 1 next year, the start of the new financial year.

“Included in that is the SAAF's commitment once again on the product support contract which supports the flying activities. The intent of the project is to ensure the aircraft are delivered to the baseline with sufficient spares holding to ensure effective operations for a period of at least five years.” The current “reduced functionality” baseline aircraft is equipped with a turreted 20mm cannon and will be able to fire unguided 70mm rockets from stub wing-mounted pods. Plans to fit the Denel Dynamics Mokopa precision guided missile seem, for now, abandoned.

SAAF Chief Director Force Preparation Major General Hugh Pain says 16 Squadron, which operates Rooivalk, is meanwhile being kept busy. “We are actually using the break as an opportunity to catch upon paperwork, doctrine and tactics and so on. So the squadron is still alive and well. The aircraft that are currently at the unit have to be kept in a serviceable condition so even though they are not flying they have to be run on a weekly basis. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in this time, so it s not wasted time... unfortunately they are not able to fly but we are looking at an opportunity later in the year to get their currency back again.”

Minne says the rotorcraft have been flying for over 10 years, meaning the “aircraft is at the point where we do need to consider the future...” There has been media talk about shutting down the programme, but Air force chief Lieutenant General Carlo Gagiano says it is not as simple as that. “Even if you wish Rooivalk away, the requirement is still there,” he says.

Brigadier General Wiseman Mbambo, SAAF Director Air Capability Planning, adds the Rooivalk is a capability that resides within the Air Force, “but it is not a SAAF capability only. It is a SANDF capability. Therefore the SAAF alone cannot make a call on the Rooivalk. We need to cater for the SANDF capability as a whole. It is a capability and it is required.” Mbambo notes any future decision, whether to scrap the programme, or to upgrade or eventually replace Rooivalk, “will need to involve all stakeholders.”

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party today added Gagiano should appear before Parliament to explain the grounding. “The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Lindiwe Sisulu, has refused to brief the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans, on the combat readiness of the defence force,” her shadow, David Maynier, said in a statement. “The fact that the air force’s attack helicopters squadron is in deep trouble is exactly the kind of information that is being hidden from Parliament.”

Defenceweb.co.za, Thursday, 12 August 2010 16:01