"South Africa cannot afford flying Gripens"...

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=17 ... n=military" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and
http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfri ... t_for_show" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

South African budget woes
The South African Air Force cannot afford to fly its Gripens, says a newspaper.

Gary Parsons - 5-Mar-2010

March 5: A South African newspaper claims that the country’s military finances are “hopelessly inadequate” and that Saab Gripen fighters will be mainly grounded due a lack of funds.

News 24 says that the South African government’s strategic plan for defence for the next three years will see 550 hours flown by the Gripen fleet this year, but reduce to just 250 hours in 2011 and 2012. The allocation for this year is mainly for security flights during the football World Cup tournament during June and July.

"Concerning the air force: We have 11 Gripens and 550 flight hours available this year, which means they are flying less than half of the hours required to comply with Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) standards. Most of these hours will be used during the 2010 World Cup, and between July and the end of the financial year, these fighter jets will be standing in their hangars," he said.

"It gets worse in the following years: Once all 26 Gripens have been delivered, they'll spend an average of 9.6 hours in flight per year."

Helmoed-Römer Heitman, a defence expert, described this budget as ludicrous and said if this is the way the navy and air force are run, the defence force might as well shut its doors.

According to him, Nato requires that fighter pilots log 20 flight hours per month (240 flight hours per year per fighter pilot, compared to the air force's budget of 550 flight hours) to remain operationally functional.

[aviodromefriend]

Why should South Africa fly as much as NATO orders to their memberstate's pilots? They are no member of NATO!

[ehusmann]

I think it is more meant as an example. NATO requires pilots to fly 240 hours per year (apparantly), while SA can only fly 250 hours with the complete Gripen fleet! That means that IF they would be complying with NATO standards, only ONE Gripen pilot would be considered operational. Kind of ludicrous.

Erwin

[pjotrtje]

They may not be a member of NATO but the 240 hours per year figure is a good point of reference when it comes to keeping combat pilots well trained. If the reported actuals of the SAAF are true, even I fly significantly more hours each year (albeit not in a Gripen), and I just have to focus on flying the aircraft, not on exercising Show Of Force, Air-To-Ground or Air-To-Air capabilities. Scary to have untrained (that's what they are if they fly that little amount of hours) people using war fighting machines.

[Wildpicture]

Well, they are certainly not part of NATO. But to keep your pilots current on the machine, procedures and emergencies they have to fly a certain number of hours per year. If you would only fly 10 hours per year, you can't safely and tactically fly a jet.

By the way, this is rather normal for South Africa these days. A few years ago the government spent billions on brandnew hightech military equipment, like the Gripens. Lots of these deals were rather shady and the present President (Zuma) has been accused of taking bribes. In the air force a large part of the staff has left and emigrated. The Australian air force (RAAF) has been actively looking for people within the South African air force and luring them away with much bigger salaries and better conditions. So even if they had the money to fly the Gripens, they wouldn't have enough staff to maintain them all.

The same problem occurs in the navy. They acquired (again with bribes from the German seller) three very high tech (and awfully expensive) submarines, which are now in Simon's Town harbour most of the time, since there is only one crew available....

[Le Addeur noir]

As far as I am aware,German Luftwaffe pilots fly nowhere near 240 hours per annum.More like 60 hours from what a German pilot told me in 2008.

Certainly the flying level at the average Luftwaffe fast jet base would suggest there is some truth in this figure.