SA Air Force turns 90
2010-01-29 17:09
Pretoria - All a little boy in a Spiderman T-shirt wanted to do on Friday was to shake the hand of an SA Air Force pilot who had earlier left a thundering sound in his wake as he flew a fighter jet overhead.
Sitting on his dad's shoulders, the young fan stared at Major Mark Wilson, pointed at the Gripen combat jet and shyly asked: "Did you really fly that?"
Wilson, the navigator of the Gripen, broadly smiled and said he did.
"Do you want to be a pilot and fly?" he asked.
"But I have to be big first," the little boy replied questioningly.
"Yes, a little bit bigger," said Wilson whose code sign is Bluebird.
The father and son were among the hundreds who came to see the air force's fleet of aircraft fly in formation over the Swartkops airfield, in Pretoria.
Second oldest in the world
The air force is the second oldest in the world with the British Royal Air Force the oldest, and celebrates its 90th anniversary this year.
Wilson has been flying the Gripen alongside Lieutenant Colonel Glen Gibson for almost two years.
He said it was an honour to take part in the celebrations before an older fan, a man in his fifties, approached him to declare that he too had flown the Gripen, albeit only on a computer simulated program.
Even Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu was in awe of the air force's capabilities.
After watching a demonstration of how the air force, the army's special task force and police would intercept and contain a hijacking and hostage situation of a plane or a commuter bus, Sisulu, wearing high heels, a dress and stockings climbed onboard the Gripen.
'We are fully ready for any situation'
"I think it's phenomenal that we own such capacity," she said, adding that it showed the world that the combat and peacekeeping unit of government was able to handle any eventuality.
This included the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup.
"We are fully ready for any situation to protect the games," she said.
However, Sisulu said the defence department's budget for new aircraft and training to maintain its capacity needed to be re-looked at.
"We need to focus on this capacity, it's absolutely necessary for our environment. Our asset is our people."
Sisulu said the simulations of the hostage situations were important for the rest of the country to see and said she would urge Cabinet ministers to observe the defence department's peacekeeping capability.
'Piecemeal' basis
"We'll make sure the minister of finance [Pravin Gordhan] sits right in the front seat," she laughed. Earlier chief of the air force Lieutenant General Carlo Gagiano told reporters his department worked on a "piecemeal" basis, spending money on priority areas as the need arose.
"Our budgets are shrinking in real terms but also in terms of inflation, coupled to that the recession has also had an impact on us."
He said the air force was constantly trying to beef up efficiency and effectiveness in light of the financial strain and had therefore opted to use more simulators in training troops.
"It will have a huge improvement to our training at a fraction of the cost."
Gagiano said a priority was the "ageing fleet" of aircraft.
"The Dakota is 75-years-old, the C130 [transport carrier] is 47-years-old... In anybody's language that is an ageing fleet."
- SAPA