The Atlas Cheetah is a South African fighter that was developed as a major upgrade for the Dassault Mirage III made by Atlas Aircraft Corporation (actually called Denel Aviation) and based on the Israeli IAI Kfir. Three different variants were created, a training one, called Cheetah D, single-seat one, Cheetah C and E, and a reconnaissance, unbuilt one, R.
As we are centering on it's foreign users, we directly move on to the operational history while serving both with Chile and Ecuador.
In 2003, Chile bought five mothballing Cheetah Es to scrap them to use them as a spare parts source for the similar ENAER Pantera, that was also an upgraded variant of the Dassault Mirage 5. Chile wrote off their last Pantera, shuting down their Grupo 4, in 2007 after their last Mirage Elkan was retired in 2006. As theywere bought for scrap, we haven't drawn them, since most probably they weren't repainted in Chilean colours.
On 23rd September 2009 the Ecuadorian Defence Ministry bought 10 ex-SAAF Cheetahs C and two Cheetahs D to replace their fleet of Dassault Mirage F.1 equipping the Escuadrón de Combat 2112 (Combat Squadron 2112) which is one of the two supersonic combat squadrons that Ecuador has. After some delays, the first airplanes arrived in Ecuador on April 2011.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Cheetah
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters.
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