SA produces first military aircraft since the 1980s

The Paramount Group has produced and sold the first military aircraft made in South Africa since the 1980s when state-owned arms maker Denel unveiled the Rooivalk, or red falcon, attack helicopter.

Africa’s biggest privately owned defence and aerospace company said it’s won orders for the Mwari, a reconnaissance and precision-strike aircraft, and the first delivery will take place this week after an 11-year development period.

Nine aircraft will be supplied to two air forces, the company said. It can’t yet disclose their identity.

South Africa built up an arms and aerospace industry during the apartheid era when it was subject to international sanctions and sought to bolster its defences against both perceived foreign threats and an internal insurrection. That led to the development of everything from the Rooivalk to tanks and assault rifles.

“We had this kind of unusual skillset, which had come about because of the mistake of history that was the apartheid-era aerospace industry,” Paramount’s founder Ivor Ichikowitz said in an interview. “The skillset was inherent in people in their late 50s. And we wanted to develop a project that would give us the ability to train the next generation of aerospace engineers.”

Paramount is aiming to sell the Mwari, a word in Zimbabwe’s Shona language that means “the all-knowing, all-seeing deity”, across the world where it can be used for counter-insurgency purposes as well as for other applications, including maritime surveillance and anti-poaching missions.

“We’re targeting any country that has to deal with an asymmetrical threat,” Ichikowitz said, in a reference to countries combating terrorists or rebels.

“We’re targeting any country in the world that is fighting against an enemy with a $30 000 (about R531 702) Land Rover. They’re using a $150 000 stinger missile” to eliminate that. Sales of the aircraft are primarily aimed at emerging market nations which would prioritise affordability.

It’s cost, excluding add-ons such as advanced avionics systems, is about $10 million and it can be operated for $1 500 an hour of flying time.

The two-pilot aircraft can carry as much as a ton of precision-guided arms and with a lighter load has a range of about 960 kilometres.

It has an interchangeable pod which allows reconnaissance and other equipment to be swapped out within two hours so the aircraft can be used for different purposes.

It’s competitors largely consist of re-purposed crop-sprayers, small passenger planes and training aircraft such as Embraer SA’s Super Tucano as well as unmanned drones.

“The first sales have been in Africa ... because that’s where we see the biggest operational need,” Ichikowitz said.

“If you look at what’s going on right now, we have multiple environments where there are asymmetrical threats that need a low-cost, highly efficient platform.”

Africa is where we see the biggest operational need