The first aircraft arrived in South Africa as a consequence of the Simon’s Town Agreement, a naval cooperation accord between Britain and South Africa signed on 30 June 1955. Under the terms of agreement South Africa would receive weapons for the defence of the vital shipping lanes around the Cape in exchange for British rights to the use of Simon’s Town naval base near Cape Town.
The Buccaneer was modified prior to delivery to suit local geographic and climatic demands, producing the S. Mk 50, an improvement on the standard S2, that included a strengthened undercarriage and higher capacity wheel-braking system with manually folded wings. In-flight refuelling was also considered a prerequisite, as well as longer-range 430-gallon underwing tanks. In addition, engineering staff at Blackburn fitted an assisted takeoff mechanism that comprised two retractable Bristol-Siddeley BS605 rocket engines which gave 30s of additional thrust during take-off and which were located at the rear of the aircraft toward the back of the engine nacelle. South Africa was the only operator of the S. Mk 50, a total of 16 being ordered in January 1963. The aircraft were flown by 24 Squadron until its disbanding in 1991 soon after the end of the war in South West Africa.
The Buccaneers were often flown in formation with another workhorse of offensive and photo-reconnaissance operations throughout the air war in South West Africa and Angola: the English Electric Canberra. Flown by the SAAF’s 12 Squadron, the Canberra was an elegant, streamlined and highly functional jetpowered light bomber. The general service history of this aircraft is impressive, being used in the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Indo-Pakistani wars as well as a number of African conflicts, most notably the South African air war over Angola, the Rhodesian civil war where it was a stalwart in external raids over Mozambique and Zambia, and in the Ethiopian Air Force in a number of regional flare-ups.
Two of the many variants of the Canberra were operated by the SAAF: the B (1).12 and the T.4. The first of the B (1).12s was acquired in 1963, with six ultimately being introduced into service along with three trainers, all flown by 12 Squadron. In 1980 a second-hand bomber-variant nose cone was acquired from Rhodesia which allowed one of the T.4s to be converted to a bomber role which coincided with the gradual internationalization of the air war and the need for as many practical air assets as possible.
The Canberra fleet saw consistent service throughout the air war, being used primarily as low-level bombers, notwithstanding a recognized high-altitude facility, with a capacity to deliver up to 300 alpha bombs from a deep bomb bay that was also configured to deploy both 250kg and the ubiquitous 1,000lb general-purpose bombs.
Canberras were a key component in two of the most effective airstrikes of the war. During the 1983 Operation Askari, Canberras combined with Impalas to destroy Angolan defences at Cuvelai which allowed SADF ground forces to capture the town at a significantly reduced human and material cost. Later, a combined Canberra–Buccaneer formation, the latter armed with AS-30 missiles, neutralized strong enemy fortifications at Cangamba in southern Angola which allowed UNITA to capture the town after nine days of heavy but inconclusive fighting.
The bomber version or the Canberra utilized a glass nose to enable the navigator–bomb-aimer to aim the bombs through a gyroscopically-stabilized gun sight, while the pilot(s) were positioned under an offset tear-drop canopy. In its photoreconnaissance role a bomber-variant camera – usually a Zeiss F-96, but occasionally an Omega-6 – was contained in a conformal gun pack canoe supplied with the original British airframes. As many as five, but usually three Zeiss cameras would be arranged in a fan configuration, with the 6-inch Omega allowing a wider field for PI orientation. There would also be a 36-inch Zeiss F-96 arranged as a vertical pinpoint camera, although the 48-inch lens was used infrequently thanks to the difficulty of keeping points of interest within the banana-slide aiming device used to manage acceptable tracking.
A circular rear camera hatch/bay was also typically used to mount the prime vertical F-96. This camera was employed during low-level strike missions for BDA photography by mounting an optical mirror looking at 45 degrees aft/down. This recorded sequentially where the alpha bombs were about to or had just struck. This simple idea saved a considerable amount of time and avoided the necessity of sending a second aircraft back later to review the results of any operation.
The Buccaneer–Canberra combination was the workhorse of the SAAF air war, but arguably the jewel in the crown of SAAF fighter capacity throughout the period was the Mirage F1 fleet flown by SAAF 1 and 3 squadrons and which saw considerable and consistent action over Angola.
The Mirage F1 was developed as an air-superiority fighter, primarily to succeed the highly successful Mirage III mark, to which the SAAF was already committed and which had been in service internationally since the early 1960s. The FI was a private venture underwritten by Dassault in order to make available a cheaper multi-role aircraft, offering the best operational efficiency and the widest flexibility during a period of rapid technological development.
The F1 offered a number features attractive to the South African defence establishment in view of evolving operational conditions confronted by the SAAF. Chief among these was the ability of the aircraft to take off and land on short, rough airstrips, thanks to the twin pulled wheel on the main gear together with medium-pressure tyres and the aircraft’s comparatively low landing speed. An additional advantage was the fact that groundhandling equipment was fully air transportable, combined with a self-starting system and a general operational turnaround time of about 15 minutes between complimentary or identical missions – the latter utilizing a pressure-refuelling time of about six minutes – all of which suited conditions in northern South West Africa where the aircraft would be operational for extended periods. Moreover, the SDAP testing unit allowed for automatic trouble-shooting in the field while a GAMO alert unit enabled the Mirage F1 to be scrambled in less than two minutes. All this was to prove as close to ideal as was technically possible.
Thus, as South Africa began to consider replacements for the Mirage III, the F1 seemed an obvious choice. The F1 offered many improvements on the Mirage III in terms of speed, increased pursuit time and high mach, which was tripled, and twice the ground-mission range. Take-off length was some 30 per cent less than the III with a 25 per cent reduction in approach speed and a general increase in manoeuvrability. After many months of discussion and ongoing negotiation, it was announced in June 1971 that a technical cooperation agreement had been reached between Dassault and French aircraft-engine manufacturer Snecma on the one hand, and the South African Atlas Mirage programme on the other, for the licensed manufacture of the Mirage F1 and engine in South Africa, the intention being to locally produce up to 100 Mirage F1s.
However, international events, and the growing entrenchment of South African race policy in combination stole the moment. In 1964 hostile international diplomatic action against South Africa in condemnation of the deepening policy of apartheid resulted in United Nations Security Council Resolution 191, part of which urged member nations to respect a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. This was largely ignored and so was consequently bolstered in July 1970 by Resolution 283 which, although falling short of a mandatory arms embargo, again urged member nations to take all and any action possible to give effect to the resolution’s measures.