Junkers Ju.52/3m in South Africa

 

The Junkers Ju.52/3m is a German transport aircraft that was designed by Ernst Zindel, manufactured by Junkers and thanks to its flying characteristics, it saw great success with many exports users. 

One of those users was South African Airways (SAA) which was founded on 1st February 1934 when the South African Government acquired Union Airways together with a small fleet of passenger aircraft, among them four Junkers F.13 (one of them leased) and a single Junkers A.50. In order to modernise the fleet, SAA ordered three Ju.52/3m which entered service in October 1934 and entered service in just 10 days.

These aircraft could carry up to 14 passengers with a crew of four and covered the route Durban-Johannesburg three times a week with weekly services on the Durban-East London-Port Elizabeth-George Mossel Bay-Cape Town route. From July 1935 another weekly Rand-Kimberley-Beaufort West-Cape Town route was set up and, in April 1936 every Rand-Cape Town service was taken over from Imperial Airways, all these routes were being covered by the Ju.52/3m for which, an additional fourth one was added to the fleet.

As the company was swiftly expanding, another ten Ju.52/3m were ordered raising the total number of SAA Ju.52/3m to fourteen, though three of the older models were sold when the newest models were bought. The airline enjoyed a rapid expansion, though in July 1937 the company suffered its first accident when one of the new Ju.52/3m crashed after taking off from Rand with one reported fatality. 

The company kept on growing, however at the start of the World War 2, its operations were paralysed and the ten Ju.52/3m were pressed into the South African Air Force (SAAF).

Serving with the SAAF the Ju.52/3m was used mainly by the No.50 Squadron SAAF during the whole duration of the war operating mainly as shuttle services from Nairobi, in Kenya to Egypt, Middle East and back to South Africa. When serving in this role, some of them were re-engined with American Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp engines placed straight instead of being splayed outwards. Some sources claim that they were also used as makeshift bombers during the East African Campaign.

In 1944 South African Airways restarted domestic air routes and the Ju.52/3m were put in storage until the late 1940s when they were mostly sold or retired when the company bought 28 Lockheed Lodestars.

One of them, a Spanish-built CASA 352L was bought in 1984 from England to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SAA and it's nowadays one of the few airworthy Ju.52 remaining.

Sources:

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

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_52

3. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234969613-junkers-ju-86-z7-saaf-revell-conv/page/2/

4. http://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/aircraft/174/ju-523m

5. https://ju52archiv.de/Ju52.pdf

6. https://de.zxc.wiki/wiki/Junkers_Ju_52/3m

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Squadron_SAAF

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airworthy_Ju_52s. 

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