The newly delivered IRIS-T air-to-air missile was shown to the public for the first time at the South African Air Force's 90th anniversary parade held at AFB Swartkop, Pretoria

(March 10, 2010) -- In 2008 the SAAF selected the IRIS-T as an interim short range air-to-air missile. It will ultimately be replaced by the indigenously designed and produced A-Darter, which is still under development.

Lt Gen Carlo Gagiano, Chief of the SAAF, said: "This missile is the state of the art high kill probability short range air missile with unrivalled performance capabilities which, when coupled to a helmet mounted display can engage air threats in the rear quarter of the aircraft as is the case with the SAAF Gripens".

South Africa has ordered 26 Gripen state-of-the-art fighters which are modernising the SAAF's fast jet fleet and capability. It currently operates nine dual seat Gripen D aircraft and will soon receive its first of 17 single-seat Gripen C fighters.

Source : Gripen International

With acknowledgements to ASD News.

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The Gripens acquired by the SAAF were acquired without weapons.

This is irregular, possibly unlawful, in terms of stipulated system acquisition practice.

And none of few of the SAAF's existing inventory of ordnance works with the Gripen.

The reason that a system needs to be acquired as a complete working weapons system is trite, it is acquired by the DoD on behalf of the arm of service with funds allocated from the Treasury through the Special Defence Account. There needs to be no surprises to either the taxpayer nor to the arm of service for the costs of operating and maintaining these weapon systems, at least up until a specific point in time such as mid-life upgrade.

Costs of weapon systems including practice stock, warstock, fuel and maintenance can easily double the acquisition cost in the short term of the basic weapons platform and multiply it by 10 to 20 times in the long term.

It is clear that the Gripen was not acquired in terms of regular processes. Indeed the SAAF is on record as declaring that it was not yet ready to acquire its next fast jet as it had just acquired 38 Cheetah Cs in 1997 and was still refining its training policy.

The Gripen, like the Hawk, was acquired by a gang of thieves including Joe Modise, Fana Hlongwane and Chippy Shaik in order to enrich themselves, their friends and their party, to a tune of R2 billion and at an expense of R150 billion to R300 billion to the country.

Now that the country is hosting the Soccer World Cup, the DoD and the SAAF are too embarrassed to bring out the quite capable 30+ Cheetah Cs with their indigenous air-to-air weapons, because this will plainly show  up the unnecessary Gripens.

In any case the SAAF has had to make an unexpected and unbudgeted multi-hundreds of million Rand purchase of these German stop-gap short range missiles, mainly for the SWC2010.

As it is, the SAAF has not yet received any single seat Gripen fighters. It is these that are meant to provide air defence and interdiction.

The dual seater Gripens are mainly for training, but also for the delivery of specialised air to ground ordnance that one does not talk about in polite company, unless one is Uncle Sam or one of his cronies.