South Africa has the second oldest air force in the world, but a lack of finance and space is threatening to scupper efforts to preserve the country’s flight history.
”Because we have the second oldest air force, it should be logical we’d have the second best recorded history, but this is not the case,” says the historical adviser to the SA Aviation Foundation, Steven McLean. He says the museum should be a flagship of the South African Air Force (SAAF), but preservation has taken a
back seat.
”From a developing-nation perspective with vastly differing socio-economic priorities, we are probably all right, but from a first world perspective we are very far behind,” he says.
The SA Aviation Foundation is a Section 21 company that looks to preserve historic aviation, and at the same time use aviation as an educational tool to foster interest among the youth. Within the structure of the foundation is an active group called the Friends who provide manpower and skills to assist the SAAF Museum at
Ysterplaat, near Cape Town. The organisation, which is 21-years-old this year, currently has around 110 members, including 15 that are based overseas.
McLean says the future for the preservation of the country’s aviation heritage rests squarely in the hands of the public and the corporate sector, and it is up to them to get involved.
”The SAAF’s primary concerns are maintaining an effective defensive and offensive aerial capability, as well as humanitarian operations, with budgetary constraints allowing for marginal deviation.
”The South African Aviation Foundation tries to assist the SAAF museum by running educational programmes with schools and have been trying to branch out into the corporate sector by offering a very unique venue for small conferences and team building exercises to try and raise interest and generate funds,” he says.
Using airshow days as an example of the lack of interest in the preservation of aircraft, McLean says that in Britain a 100 000-strong crowd on each day of a major two-day airshow is normal, but in South Africa 40 000 is deemed a huge success for a one-day event, dwindling rapidly from 3pm when ”the Bokke played”.
Much of the preservation of ”the old war horses” depends on the goodwill of volunteers, ”many of whom hold jobs and do it in their spare time”.
Illustrating the lack of foresight and the wanton destruction of planes in the past, McLean says that it was only in the last 30 years that the air force started to concentrate on preservation.
”But so much has been lost already. To use an example, in the early 1970s a Hawker Hurricane was one of several vintage aircraft scrapped in South Africa. Today airworthy Hurricanes are valued at around R25-million per plane. A lack of interest in most quarters resulted in almost no attention being paid to preservation.”
The air force is currently working on a disposal plan for aircraft that will be replaced with the new acquisitions as part of the multi-billion rand arms deal.
Responding to Sapa queries, the SA Air Force chief General Roelf Beukes says: ”The SAAF Strategic Transformation Plan Vision 2012 states as a strategic priority that excess main equipment, spares, test equipment and other components of logistic support should be inventoried and placed on a disposal schedule.
”This would, for example, include the Allouette III helicopters as they are phased out with the commissioning of the new Agusta 109 Light Utility Helicopters. Similarly, it would contain the Impala Mk1 and Mk2 aircraft as they are withdrawn from service to coincide with the commissioning of the Hawk aircraft.”
Asked how this will affect preservation work, McLean says the air force has learnt from the mistakes of the past, with airframes now being allocated for preservation before the aircraft are officially retired.
”A good example of this is both the Impala MkI trainer and Cheetah C, both of which are still part of the SAAF’s inventory but examples are on display at the museums in either Pretoria or Cape Town,” he says.
Asked to elaborate on the space and financial constraints, McLean says space is so limited at the museum in Cape Town, that the ”majority of what we have to display and educate the public on cannot be exhibited”.
McLean does not think the government will be prepared to subsidise aircraft preservation, given the pressing needs elsewhere, adding that privatisation is an option.
”(I) believe the way forward is a public-private partnership where the SAAF provides the basic exhibit and display location, and private industry assists with the cost of the maintenance and providing a display venue on the location provided.
”Cape Town is widely regarded as the prime tourist venue… and the advertising potential for a corporate involved in sponsoring a part of the museum is massive,” he says.
McLean adds it is imperative to preserve planes, particularly for the sake of heritage.
”There is a very rich and unique history involving black and white South Africans standing together to defeat Nazism and fascism between 1939 and 1945. We can’t allow the sacrifice of either party to go unrecorded… because we stood together as one when we as a nation were under threat. The displays at the museum are impartial, unbiased, and look to tell an accurate story from both sides. No victors and no losers are portrayed, simply the facts in a straight-forward and, where possible, hands-on manner.”
Giving salient examples of the history-laden aircraft facing an uncertain future in the country, McLean mentions the Shackeltons, which provided a massive humanitarian capability while in service between 1957 and 1984.
”(Yet) one of only two examples flying anywhere in the world faces a very uncertain future because of lack of funds,” he says.
The Coelacanth fish, very much a special part of South Africa history, was flown in a Dakota when brought to South Africa in 1952.
”That very same Dakota, airworthy but for lack of money, now stands at Ysterplaat also facing an uncertain future.” – Sapa