The
Atlas Cheetah was a
fighter aircraftA fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets by dropping bombs. Fighters are small, fast, and maneuverable...
operated by the
South African Air ForceThe South African Air Force is the air force of South Africa, with headquarters in Pretoria. It is the world's second oldest independent air force, and its motto is Per Aspera Ad Astra...
(SAAF) between 1986 and 2008. It was first built as a major upgrade of the
Dassault Mirage IIIThe Mirage III is a supersonic fighter aircraft designed in France by Dassault Aviation during the late 1950s, and manufactured both in France and a number of other countries. It was a successful fighter aircraft, being sold to many air forces around the world and remaining in production for over a...
by the
Atlas Aircraft CorporationThe Atlas Aircraft Corporation of South Africa was established in 1965 to manufacture a number of sophisticated military aircraft and avionics equipment for the South African Air Force, as well as for export...
(later
DenelDenel Ltd is a South African government dominated military-industrial and technological conglomerate established in 1991. It was created when the manufacturing subsidiaries of Armscor were split from Armscor in order for Armscor to be solely the procurement arm of the South African Defence Force ,...
) of
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
(established 1965) in South Africa. Three different variants were created, the dual-seat Cheetah D, and the single-seat Cheetah E and Cheetah C. The Cheetah E was retired in 1992, and the SAAF had a mixture of 28 Cheetah Cs and Cheetah Ds in operational service until April 2008, when they were retired as the SAAF accepted into service the first of 26 Saab
JAS 39 GripenThe Saab JAS 39 Gripen is a fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab. Gripen International acts as a prime contracting organisation and is responsible for marketing, selling and supporting the Gripen fighter around the world....
s (17C/9D) which replaced them.
Development
The Atlas Cheetah programme grew out of
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
's requirement for a modern fighter and strike aircraft in the 1980s. There was a need for more advanced aircraft to attain an edge over the ever more sophisticated
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
aircraft such as the
MiG-23The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 is a swing-wing fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau in the Soviet Union. It is considered to belong to the Soviet "Third Generation" aircraft category along with similar-aged Russian-produced fighters like the MiG-25 "Foxbat"...
being supplied to
AngolaAngola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean. The exclave province of Cabinda has a border with the Republic of the...
n and
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is...
n forces in action against South African forces in the
Border WarThe South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, refers to the conflict that took place from 1966 to 1989 in South-West Africa and Angola between South Africa and its allied forces on the one side and the Angolan government, South-West Africa People's Organisation ,...
. Furthermore, the increasing cost of maintenance due to sanctions and the age of the aircraft used by the SAAF had to be addressed. The
arms embargoAn arms embargo is an embargo that applies to weaponry. It may also include "dual use" items. An arms embargo may serve one or more purposes:# to signal disapproval of behavior by a certain actor,# to maintain neutral standing in an ongoing conflict, or...
imposed at the time by
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418United Nations Security Council Resolution 418, passed on 4 November 1977, imposed a mandatory arms embargo against apartheid South Africa. This resolution differed from the earlier Resolution 282, which was only voluntary...
prevented South Africa from purchasing new aircraft from other countries, thus making an upgrade of existing aircraft the only option. By this stage, the South African aviation industry had reached the level of technical capability to make a large and sophisticated upgrade possible, leading the SAAF to make the only possible decision, to radically upgrade one of the existing types in service.
At the time the SAAF's fast jet fleet consisted of Dassault Mirage III (EZ/CZ/BZ/DZ/D2Z/RZ/R2Z) aircraft and
Mirage F1The Dassault Mirage F1 is a French single-seat air-superiority fighter and attack aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation as a successor of the Mirage III family. The Mirage F1 entered service in the French Air Force in the early seventies...
(AZ/CZ) aircraft. Though the Mirage F1s were the most modern of the fleet, having been delivered from 1977 onwards, they were the primary element of South Africa's air defence and strike fleet and to withdraw them for an upgrade would have left an unacceptable gap in its air defence and strike capability. In addition there were already a few successful Mirage III upgrades from which to learn, such as the
KfirThe Israel Aircraft Industries Kfir is an Israeli-built all-weather, multi-role combat aircraft based on a modified Dassault Mirage 5 airframe, with Israeli avionics and an Israeli-made version of the General Electric J79 turbojet engine....
and Mirage III NG, so the SAAF's Mirage III fleet was chosen as the basis for the upgrade, to be known initially as
Project Cushion.
The work was carried out by Atlas Aviation (formerly Atlas Aircraft Corporation and lately
Denel AviationDenel Aerospace Systems, formerly Kentron, is a division of Denel Ltd, a South African armaments development and manufacturing company wholly owned by the South African Government. It underwent the name change from Kentron during the early part of 2004...
), using expertise gained by recruiting technicians from Israel's aborted
LaviThe IAI Lavi was a combat aircraft developed in Israel in the 1980s. It was a multi-billion dollar fighter aircraft project that was disbanded when the Israeli government concluded it could not finance production on its own, could not achieve a consensus on the Lavi's cost-effectiveness and...
jet fighter project. The upgrade consisted of a complete refurbishment of the airframe down to zero hours (in which some 50% of the original airframe is said to have been replaced), the fitment of non-moving
canardIn aeronautics, canard is an airframe configuration of fixed-wing aircraft in which the horizontal stabilizer is ahead of the main wing, rather than behind them as in conventional aircraft empennage....
s (slightly different in geometry to those on the Kfir) just aft of the engine intakes, two new stores pylons at the wing roots, an aerial refuelling probe, new ejection seats, a more powerful engine (the
SNECMA Atar 9K50C-11The SNECMA Atar is a French axial-flow turbojet engine built by Snecma. It was derived from the German World War II BMW 003 design, but extensively developed though a progression of more powerful models...
[upgraded in South Africa]) in the D and C variants, a new main wing spar along with a new "drooping" leading edge and a dog-tooth incision on each wing, modern elevons controlled by a twin computer flight control system, and strakes on the nose to improve the Cheetah's high-
Angle of attackAngle of attack is a term used in fluid dynamics to describe the angle between a reference line on a body and the vector representing the relative motion between the body and the fluid through which it is moving. In general, the reference line could be any line on any arbitrarily shaped body in...
(AoA) performance. The aerodynamic refinements alone increased the turn rate by 15%, increased the AoA, reduced the minimum airspeed to 100 kt and increased maximum take-off weight by 700 kg. However, it also resulted in a 5% decrease in maximum level speed and acceleration.
In addition, a highly sophisticated
avionicsAvionics means "aviation electronics". It comprises electronic systems for use on aircraft, artificial satellites and spacecraft, comprising communications, navigation and the display and management of multiple systems...
,
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
,
EWElectronic warfare refers to any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum or directed energy to control the spectrum or to attack the enemy. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent the advantage of, and ensure friendly unimpeded access to, the EM spectrum...
and self-protection suite was installed, necessitating a lengthening of the nose. This entailed the fitment of an EW suite which includes missile and radar warning sensors, and automatically engages the aircraft's self-protection system, which consists of electronic
jammersRadar jamming and deception is the intentional emission of radio frequency signals to interfere with the operation of a radar by saturating its receiver with noise or false information...
and
chaffChaff, originally called Window by the British, and Düppel by the World War II era German Luftwaffe, is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of aluminium, metallised glass fibre or plastic, which either appears as a cluster of secondary...
/flare dispensers; the integration of a South African helmet-mounted sight and an oversized
head-up displayA head-up display, or abbreviated as HUD, is any transparent display that presents data without requiring the user to look away from his or her usual viewpoint...
(HUD); the installation of an advanced
Pulse-DopplerDoppler radar is radar that makes use of the doppler effect to produce data about objects at a distance. It does this by beaming a microwave signal towards a desired target and listening for its reflection, then analyzing how the original signal has been altered by the object that reflected it...
radar and sophisticated cockpit instrumentation.
Most leading aviation publications believe that Israel Aircraft Industries was involved in at least the initial stages of the upgrade, and that some of the upgrade's components were sourced from Israel, though the SAAF refuses to either confirm or deny such speculation. However, considering the close ties in defence industry research between South Africa and Israel at the time, such co-operation on the Cheetah program seems likely. 16 of the SAAF's 27 Mirage IIIDZ/D2Z aircraft were converted to Cheetah D standard, 16 of its Mirage IIIEZ aircraft were converted to Cheetah E standard, but no South African Mirage airframes were used for the 38 Cheetah Cs.
Operational history
First to roll off the production line were the Cheetah Ds and Cheetah Es, though it appears the Cheetah Ds had production priority. The first aircraft to be converted was a Mirage IIID2Z, no.845, which arrived at Atlas in April 1983. The date of completion is unknown, but the first Cheetah D was officially unveiled on 16 July 1986, by which time a number of Cheetah Ds had already entered service with 89 Combat Flying School at AFB Pietersburg, though the type was only declared operational in 1987. The second and third aircraft to be delivered to Atlas were both Mirage IIIEZs, and the resulting Cheetah Es went into service with 5 Squadron at
AFB Louis TrichardtAir Force Base Makhado is an airbase of the South African Air Force, located at . It is the SAAF's northernmost base, situated at Louis Trichardt near the border with Zimbabwe, as well as being its most modern, and is known unofficially as Fighter Town, RSA.The base motto is Castrum Borealis...
. 16 of each type were in service by 1991 when the Cheetah D and E conversion lines closed, by which time the first of the 38 Cheetah Cs were being converted, with the first being rolled out in January 1993. All the Cheetah Cs entered service with
2 Squadron-Background:2 Squadron is currently the premier squadron in the South African Air Force, and has a long history, having been involved in every single combat action in which the SAAF has taken part...
, also at AFB Louis Trichardt. None of the Cheetah variants ever saw combat in the Border War, so their performance was never tested against the dominant fighter in the conflict, the MiG-23. The Cheetah Es were used as permanent
interceptor aircraftAn interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft, particularly bombers, usually relying on great speed...
aircraft, with a minimum of two aircraft on round-the-clock alert status, until the end of the Border War in 1989.
With the entering into service of the Cheetah C, the Cheetah Es were withdrawn from service and 5 Squadron was disbanded in 1992. Soon afterwards, 89 Combat Flying School was also disbanded, and all the Cheetah Ds were transferred to 2 Squadron, where they remained until retirement in 2008.
Cheetah C
The Cheetah C was the ultimate development of the Cheetah series, and was the only fighter aircraft in service with the SAAF until replaced by the
SaabSaab AB is an aerospace and defense company based in Sweden.-History:"Svenska Aeroplan AB " was founded in 1937 in Trollhättan, with the merger of SAAB and Linköping based ASJA. The headquarters moved to Linköping...
JAS 39 GripenThe Saab JAS 39 Gripen is a fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab. Gripen International acts as a prime contracting organisation and is responsible for marketing, selling and supporting the Gripen fighter around the world....
in 2008. Many of the features of the Cheetah aircraft are still classified, and the SAAF is unwilling to reveal too many details. What is known is that in addition to the upgrades described above, the Cheetah C incorporates a more sophisticated avionics and navigation suite and a new pulse-doppler multi-mode radar (ELTA), both of which are regarded as being better than the systems fitted to Block 50
F-16sThe Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon is a multirole jet fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force. Designed as a lightweight, daytime Visual Flight Rules fighter, it evolved into a successful multirole aircraft...
, and one of the most advanced EW systems fitted to a fighter aircraft. The aircraft is also fitted with a datalink, though the capabilities of this system are unknown, and it received updated versions of the helmet-mounted sight, HUD and improved
HOTASHOTAS, an abbreviation for Hands On Throttle-And-Stick, is the name given to the concept of placing buttons and switches on the throttle stick and flight control stick in an aircraft's cockpit, allowing the pilot to access vital cockpit functions and fly the aircraft without having to remove his...
controls.
Other improvements include the fitment of a single-piece wrap-around windshield with an anti-radiation coating in place of the old three-piece version, a new in-flight refuelling probe with less external piping, new undercarriage and suspension, the deletion of the wing fences, an upgraded version of the Atar 9K50 and a new nose to incorporate the more sophisticated electronics and radar.
Like the Cheetah D, the Cheetah C is capable of delivering
precision-guided munitionPrecision-guided munitions are guided weapons intended to precisely hit a specific target, and to minimize damage to things other than the target...
s (PGMs), ranging from
laser-guided bombA laser-guided bomb is a precision-guided munition that uses semi-active laser homing to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than a free-fall bomb. LGBs are one of the most common and widespread PGMs, used by a large number of the world's air forces.-Overview:Laser-guided munitions...
s (LGBs), to
GPS-guided weaponsPrecision-guided munitions are guided weapons intended to precisely hit a specific target, and to minimize damage to things other than the target...
and TV-guided bombs. It also has the capability of using stand-off air-to-ground weapons such as the MUPSOW and TORGOS. In addition, it is able to carry a raft of air-to-air weapons, and the SAAF currently equips its aircraft with the
V4 R-DarterThe R-Darter is a beyond visual range air-to-air missile using semi-active radar homing. It is designed and manufactured by the South African firm of Denel Aerospace Systems ....
, a
beyond-visual-range (BVR)A Beyond Visual Range missile usually refers to an air-to-air missile that is capable of engaging at ranges beyond 20 nautical miles...
radar-guided missile, and the U/Darter, a highly capable short-range
infrared (IR)-guidedInfrared homing refers to a passive missile guidance system which uses the emission from a target of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum to track it. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers", since infrared is just below the visible...
missile.
A measure of the capabilities of the Cheetah C is the result of an air-combat maneuvering (ACM) exercise between the Cheetah Cs of 2 Squadron and
F-15E Strike EagleThe F-15E Strike Eagle is a 1980s American all-weather strike fighter, designed for long-range interdiction of enemy ground targets deep behind enemy lines...
s of the 494th Fighter Squadron,
United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the U.S. armed forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947 - 80 P.L....
at
RAF LakenheathRoyal Air Force Station Lakenheath, commonly abbreviated to RAF Lakenheath, is a Royal Air Force military airbase located near Lakenheath in Suffolk, England. Although technically an RAF station, it primarily hosts United States Air Force units and personnel...
, after which the score tallies for each side were almost exactly equal.
Cheetah D
The Cheetah D is the sole two-seater variant, and is mainly used operationally as a training aircraft for pilots converting to the Cheetah C, though it does have a secondary attack capability, including the ability to deliver PGMs. Under
Project Recipient, 10 of the remaining 13 Cheetah Ds were re-engined with the Atar 09K50C-11, replacing their original Atar 09C engines. The three not upgraded have been withdrawn from use. Recently, the Cheetah D's avionics were also upgraded, to bring them on par with the avionics in the Cheetah C, while the original three piece front windshield has been replaced with a one-piece wraparound version.
Cheetah D No.845 is currently based at the
Test Flight and Development CentreThe Test Flight and Development Centre is a unit of the South African Air Force. It is currently a test flight and evaluation centre.-History:...
(TFDC) as a systems testing aircraft. It was recently used in the development of the Denel Dynamics MUPSOW stand-off weapon. Denel also keeps two Cheetah Ds for testing, No.844 and No.847. The former is Denel's standard systems testing aircraft, while the latter was used in the evaluation of the SMR-95 engine, a development of the
Klimov RD-33The RD-33 turbofan engine was developed in 1985 to power the Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter. It is an 8000-9000 kgf thrust class turbofan twin-shaft engine with afterburner built by the Klimov company of Russia and has several variants. It features a modular design, individual parts can be replaced...
. The performance increase offered by the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n engine was impressive, but budget cuts and problems with the aircraft's centre of gravity ended the program. No.847 is currently in storage with Denel.
These aircraft were retired from service in 2008, as the first JAS-39D Gripen began to be delivered to the SAAF.
Cheetah E
The single-seater Cheetah E is regarded by most observers as having just been an interim fighter for use in the period before the Cheetah Cs became operational, due to the very short operational life of the Cheetah E, which was only a few years from its entry into operational service in 1987/88 to its retirement in 1992. It was fitted with a comparatively simple avionics suite and radar, and retained the Atar 9C-3 engine. Its typical mission while in service was as a standby interceptor, whereby a minimum of two aircraft, armed with two V3B (later V3C) missiles, would be on permanent alert status in case of an attack from the north.
All the aircraft were placed into storage, though the final example, No.842, was painted in a non-standard camouflage scheme and used for systems testing. No.842 is currently with the SAAF Museum, and is stored at
AFB SwartkopAFB Swartkop is an air force base in South Africa. It is managed as part of AFB Waterkloof and houses one of the three branches of the South African Air Force Museum...
. In 2003
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
purchased five of the mothballed aircraft, numbers 819, 820, 827, 832 and 833. The country has also indicated its desire to purchase seven more aircraft (numbers 822, 823, 825, 828, 829, 831 and 834), subject to the agreement of a suitable purchase price. The
Chilean Air ForceThe Chilean Air Force is the air force of Chile, a branch of the Chilean military.-History:The first step towards the current FACH was taken by Teniente Coronel Pedro Pablo Dartnell when he founded the Servicio de Aviación Militar de Chile on December 20 1910 being trained as a pilot in France...
(FACh) will use the Cheetah E airframes as a source of spares for its similar
ENAER PanteraThe Dassault Mirage 5 is a supersonic attack aircraft designed in France by Dassault Aviation during the 1960s, and manufactured both in France and a number of other countries...
aircraft.
Cheetah R
The Cheetah R was a feasibility study into an extension of the Cheetah upgrade programme to include a specialist
reconnaissanceReconnaissance is a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information. Militarily, its shorthand Canadian and British form is recce , its American usage form is recon...
model. An Atar 9K50-engine Mirage IIIR2Z, No.855, was chosen as the basis for the upgrade. In addition to the airframe refurbishment, No.855 received a new nose design and the same radar as used in the Cheetah E, the twin DEFA 30mm cannons were removed and it was the only Cheetah type to not receive an in-flight refuelling probe. The SAAF decided not to proceed with the Cheetah R programme, and so No.855 was fitted with the Atlas Advanced Combat Wing (ACW), for which it was used as a testing and development aircraft. No.855 was eventually scrapped, and its ACW put in storage at the SAAF Museum.
Instead of having a dedicated reconnaissance aircraft, the SAAF uses the Vinten Vicon 18 Series 601 reconnaissance pod on the Cheetah C.
Operators
Retired from service in 2008.
On September 23, 2009, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense announced that
EcuadorEcuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador , literally, "Republic of the equator") is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America that...
had reached a decision to buy 12 ex-SAAF Cheetah C's to replace its aging fleet of
Mirage F.1JAsThe Dassault Mirage F1 is a French single-seat air-superiority fighter and attack aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation as a successor of the Mirage III family. The Mirage F1 entered service in the French Air Force in the early seventies...
in one of the
Ecuadorian Air Force'sThe Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador.- History :The FAE was officially created on October 27th 1920. However, like in many other countries, military flying activity started before the formal date of birth of the Air Force. The history of Ecuador is marked by many...
two operating supersonic fighter squadrons.
In 2003 Chile purchased five of the mothballed aircraft and has also indicated its desire to purchase seven more aircraft, subject to the agreement of a suitable purchase price. The
Chilean Air ForceThe Chilean Air Force is the air force of Chile, a branch of the Chilean military.-History:The first step towards the current FACH was taken by Teniente Coronel Pedro Pablo Dartnell when he founded the Servicio de Aviación Militar de Chile on December 20 1910 being trained as a pilot in France...
will use the Cheetah E airframes as a source of spares for its similar
ENAER PanteraThe Dassault Mirage 5 is a supersonic attack aircraft designed in France by Dassault Aviation during the 1960s, and manufactured both in France and a number of other countries...
.
Specifications (Cheetah C)
External links
See also