SA’s Paramount receives orders for Mwari aircraft

Private South African defence firm Paramount Aerospace Industries had received orders for nine of its Mwari aircraft — the first military aircraft to be designed and built in the country in nearly two decades, the company said yesterday.

The first of the propellerdriven reconnaissance, surveillance and precision strike aircraft will be delivered this week, Paramount announced on the sidelines of the Africa Aerospace and Defence show in Pretoria.

Paramount declined to name the two initial customers for the Mwari. But the company said it was targeting military clients in developing countries in Africa and Asia for sales.

“We have immense interest around the world,” Paramount Group founder Ivor Ichikowitz said.

“Our biggest challenge right now is going to be to set up production capacity quickly enough to meet the demand.”

The defence sector once played a major role in SA’s economy — a legacy of the apartheid regime’s need to produce locally due to embargoes

— and boasted one of the world’s most diversified nonaligned arms industries.

More recently, however, it has suffered from a squeeze on defence spending globally and a weak home market.

The Rooivalk — an attack helicopter developed by stateowned defence company Denel in the 1980s — was the last military aircraft designed and manufactured in SA.

But it never reached largescale production, and manufacturing ended in the early 2000s.

Development of the Mwari began in 2010.

Paramount markets it as a relatively inexpensive alternative to pricey, high-maintenance military aircraft for surveillance, maritime patrol and counterinsurgency operations.

A base model costs around $10m (R177.24m), with add-on options including hi-tech optical pods, electronic intelligence gathering and night vision.

To date Paramount has invested about R750m in the aircraft’s development.

Ichikowitz said the plan was ultimately to sell modular manufacturing facilities allowing customers to produce their own versions of the Mwari locally.

Paramount already uses a similar system to build land vehicles at locations around the world.

“Paramount pioneered the concept of portable production some years ago,” Ichikowitz said.

“What we have in South Africa is the first of the microfactories that will ultimately be built around the world to produce this aircraft.”