Atlas Cheetah - South African Users, Part Two

Today we center ourselves on the operational history and variants of the Atlas Cheetah.

As we said earlier, the Cheetah was, basically, a vast development of the Dassault Mirage III, and the first of those airplanes to be converted was the Mirage IIIDZ no.845 which was bought by Atlas Aircraft Company in April 1983 and the modifications were finished on 16th July 1986, by the time that various Cheetah Ds were in active service with the South African 89. Combat Flying School based at AFB Pietersburg but it wasn't only until 1987 that the type was declared operational.
Later, the company bought some Mirage IIIEZ in order to convert them into Cheetah Es and entered service with the South African Air Force at AFB Louis Trichardt serving with the 5.Squadron. More precisely, 16 of each type were in service by 1991 when the production lines for the Cheetah E and D closed, by which time the Cheetah C were being converted and the first of them rolled out of the production lines on January 1993.
Every Cheetah C entered service with the 2. Squadron SAAF, which was also based at AFB Louis Trichardt.
None of the Cheetahs saw combat action in the Border war, so their performance was never tested against the MiG-23 and the Cheetah Es were used as interceptors with a minimum of two of them staying in permanent alert status until the Border War ended in 1989.
When the more modern Cheetah C entered into service, the Cheetah Es were withdrawn from the active service and the 5. Squadron SAAF was disbanded in 1992. Soon after, the 89. Combat Flying School was also disbanded and the Cheetah Ds were transferred to 2. Squadron SAAF, where they remained in active service until 2008.
However, two Cheetah Ds are still operated by Denel Aviation at the Overberg Test Flight and development center.

The variants of the Cheetah are:

• Cheetah D: The sole two-seater variant which was used mainly for training duties. It had also secondary attack capabilities as it could deliver some PGM. Some of them received an upgraded version of the Atar 9K50C-11 engine plus some upgrades in avionics systems.
• Cheetah E: A variant developed as an interim fighter until the Cheetah C were available, as it was thought as an interceptor, it was armed mostly with air-to-air weaponry, mainly V3B and V3C missiles.
• Cheetah C: The final development of the Cheetah, was the only fighter type serving with the South African Air Force until being replaced by the SAAB JAS39 Gripen in 2008. It was equipped with an improved pulse-doppler multi-mode radar (ELTA) and had also improved helmet and HUD systems. It featured also an anti-radiation shield wraped around the windshield a revised in-flight probe, an upgraded version of the Atar 9K50 engine and a new nose to fit the new radar. As the previous versions it could deliver precision-guided munitions, GPS-guided bombs and TV guided bombs plus various air-to-ground weapons and air-to-air missiles.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Cheetah

2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Atlas Cheetah - South African Users, part one

As South Africa needed a modern fighter that could also act as a strike fighter in the 1980s, specially when their enemies in the border war, like Angola or Cuba counted with the newer Mig-23, and considering that South Africa was under an arms embargo by the United Nations due to the apartheid, made the upgrade of the already available material the only real choice for the South African Air Force.

As, they had a respectable amount of Dassault Mirage III and Mirage F.1, the Atlas Aviation company, using expertise gained from the aborted Israeli IAI Lavi fighter upgraded the main airframe of a Mirage III down to zero hours, fitted non-moving canards aft of the engine intakes, added two new wings store pylons at the wing roots, an aerial refuelling probe, new ejection seats, a new and more powerful engine (an upgraded SNECMA Atar 9k50C-11), a new main wing spar together with a new drooping leading edge and a dog-tooth incisition on each wing, modernized elevons controlled by a twin computer flight control system and strakes on the nose in order to improve the high angle of attack performance.
Just the aerodynamical improvements increased the performance of the aircraft by a respectable 15%, increased the angle of attack, reduced the minimum airspeed to 100kt and increased the maximum take-off weight by 700kg with the cost of a lost of a 5% in maximum level of speed and acceleration.

Additionaly a highly sophisticated avionics, radar, electronic warfare and self-protection suit was installed making the increase of the nose lengthness necessary. Missile and radar warning sensors were also installed as they were needed like electronic jammers, automatic chaff/flare dispensers, an integrated helmet mounted sight and oversized heads-up-display (HUD) an advanced pulse-doppler radar and sophisticated cockpit instrumentation.
It's suspected that Israel Aircraft Industries was involved at least initially and even some components were imported from Israel and even that some IAI Neshers were bought by South Africa for Cheetah trials and then absorbed into the existing fleet.

We are covering those conmemorative or special painted aircrafts, that were non combatant, leaving the combatant ones for the next post.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Cheetah
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of FIghters

Atlas Cheetah - Foreign Users

Yes, that's the South African roundel of the 1980s.

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.