Remplacement des C47TP Dakota de la SAA

SAAF maritime patrol and surveillance plans unveiled
Date: 14 October 2009




By Dean Wingrin and DefenceWeb

The South African Air Force has a requirement for five specialised Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) and eight cheaper general-purpose Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA).

Brigadier General Tsoku Khumalo, Director of Transport and Maritime Systems in the SAAF, told the DefenceWeb Maritime Security Conference in Cape Town yesterday that the Douglas C-47TP Dakota currently in use by 35 Squadron in a limited MSA role can only serve until 2015 and is in dire need of replacement. A replacement is required from 2016.

Khumalo admitted that the matter of maritime surveillance and patrol had been neglected by the SAAF as there were other, more urgent, priorities.

The new aircraft will have to be cost effective, sustainable, appropriate and offer a growth path. It will need to be capable of inshore, coastal and deep-sea exclusive economic zone patrol as well as search-and-rescue (SAR) work. To support naval operations they will also require an ability to engage in antisubmarine and surface warfare.

The C-47 has been in SAAF service since 1943. It replaced the Avro Shackleton MR3, the last SAAF purpose-designed MPA, in the maritime role in 1984. Several C-47s were modernised in the early 1990s and fitted with turboprop engines in the place of the radial engines than carried. About 11 of these aircraft remain in service, of which five are used in the maritime role.

Studies had just commenced, concentrating on the systems baseline, with the actual platform to be decided at a later date. The new aircraft will require the ability detect, track, classify and identify surface targets and in wartime to engage the same with onboard weapons. Therefore, the platform would have to include items such as 360-degree radar, optical and acoustic sensors, electronic support measures (ESM), advanced communications and a tactical mission system.

The optimum number of exposures an aircraft should be present in a particular area was reflected as follows:

- West Coast EEZ: 1 in 72
- South Coast EEZ: 1 in 24
- East Coast EEZ: 1 in 36
- Fishing grounds: 1 in 24
- Off-shore islands: 1 in 72

While such a schedule would have a definite deterrent value to foreign trawlers fishing illegally, it would place quite a strain on aircrew and maintenance personnel.

Khumalo said that the SAAF realistically required 12 to 14 MPAs but these were very costly and the budget needed likely prohibitive. Thus, the SAAF was looking at a two-tier system: an in-shore, low-cost Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (MSA) and a long-range, weaponised, Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA).

The MSA would be used in patrolling the country's exclusive economic zone that stretches to 200 nautical miles from the coast on behalf of state entities such as the departments of the Environment and Transport, the SA Maritime Safety Authority, the Maritime and Coastal Management authority and the police. As it would carry no weapons, it could be successfully employed and deployed on non-military and most military missions.

Another benefit is that the MSA could be used in co-operation with neighbouring States, patrolling the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of those States who would have a representative on board the aircraft. This was easily facilitated, as the aircraft would not carry offensive weapons.

MSA can also be purchased as commercial-off-the-shelf platforms. It was envisaged that the MSA would be placed into service by late 2011 or 2012, i.e., before the retirement of the C-47TP.

The MPA's will conduct defensive surface warfare and antisubmarine operations in collaboration with the SA Navy and will have the ability to carry weapons if needed. The in-service date for the MPA is 2016.

Commonality of systems between the MSA and MPA was paramount. Khumalo says since MPA are expensive to acquire and operate, it is "therefore feasible to consider MSA with much of the same mission equipment and more compact and delivering the same outcomes but at lesser cost."

The SAAF has a funded programme on the defence department's Strategic Capital Acquisition Master Plan, Project Saucepan, to acquire the aircraft. The budget, however, is not known.

Khumalo, who did not refer to Saucepan, added that the choice and mix of platforms were still under discussion. The MPA, while having a maritime role, also needed to have a transport function and would also replace the C-47 and Casa aircraft; Khumalo being keen to reduce the number of platform types in use in the SAAF transport environment.

While at pains to avoid mentioning manufacturers or aircraft models for fear of creating perceptions, Khumalo did acknowledge that to have the range for maritime operations - the SA SAR region is some 17.2m square kilometres in size - and to have a useful cargo capacity the aircraft would have to be of the size and capability of the Casa 295. The MSA would be of a similar size to the Beech 350ER.

However, extreme long-range SAR operations over the sea would remain the task of the Lockheed Martin C130 Hercules or, once in service, the Airbus A400M Loadmaster