https://www.defenceweb.co.za/resources/ ... anekdotes/He started his post-university career in the South African Air Force. His particular puzzle-solving talents were soon recognized. When South Africa was forced to find ways and means to establish their own defence systems, most notably the Cheetah Project, he was drafted into a team that liaised with similar teams overseas. He spent many years studying and working in countries such as Italy, Germany, France, Peru, Israel, Malaysia, Germany, USA, Singapore, the UAE and even the USSR where they worked on a top secret project to re-engine the Cheetahs and Mirages with Klimov engines as used in the Mig-29s; and later the abandoned Cava project to design an all-new South African fighter jet.
His accounts of what happened are hilarious. After 1994 he joined overseas companies that required his expertise. Through the years he made a major contribution to the development of new technology, but due to the strictly top secret nature of his work, his family and friends never knew where he was and what he was doing.
Now retired and living in Canada, he reflects on his various postings and projects and all the funny adventures along the way from a dusty Free State town to living in Leonid Brezhnev’s dacha in Russia, meeting the great grandson of Henry Ford, singing “Sarie Marais” at a karaoke evening in Japan and eating a Philly-steak at a table once occupied by Bill Clinton, among many interesting experiences, to finally living in Vancouver with his French wife and still tinkering in his garage.
“Uiters geheim en ander anekdotes” by Kobus de Villiers
From Kobus De Villiers' fascinating Facebook Page...
I see some of the guys think we just walked into the Mig factory and got working. If only it was so easy.
Once the project got approved, I had to select a team of 6 to 10 experts in each field that would be needed. This group then underwent a rigorous security and personality scrutiny. Then we had to decide what technical info we would need there and this had to be edited so that we did not give away any of our and other friend’s technology.
Our families did not know where we would be and were only given a telephone number and mailbox in Pretoria in case of an emergency.
We travelled in small groups via methods and routes I will not discuss here. Eventually, we all ended up in Brezhnev’s 1960’s dacha. Here we lived, 2 to a room, ate and worked for 10 hours every day, often on weekends too. In the summer we could go out into the big garden, but in the winter it was -20C most of the time. The Russian team of experts arrived every day by old army bus. In those days there were very bad shortages of everything in Russia and people stood in line for hours to get basic food. I arranged with the kitchen staff that the Russians could eat two meals with us every day. It went a long way to build trust and camaraderie.
The engine team worked on the design and modification of the engine, the Mig gearbox guys worked on the new airframe gearboxes and the South Africans worked on the design of the airframe mods, the changes to the hydraulic, electrical, air-conditioning and fuel system. We also had to work with pilots to get the cockpit, engine controls and instrumentation sorted out. We also worked on the new tailcone which we wanted to work with the engine nozzle so that we could reduce base drag in the supersonic range. The biggest challenge was the new very fast intake requirements. The intakes have to control the shockwave while giving maximum airflow into the new engine.
Every two weeks a few of us, plus our guards, would fly to Stalingrad to visit the Klimov engine facility to compare notes and check progress. Then Aeroflot had a series of crashes, so it was decided that we would do the trip by train! 12 hours each way through snow and frozen lakes, something like Murder on the Orient Express!
Every 6 weeks we sent a few guys home for R&R, since we could not go out of our compound. It was hard & I had my work cut out to keep the guys from irritating each other and getting cabin fever.
There was also always a sense of danger and towards the end of the program, one of the Russian managers was found in his car, somewhere in Moscow, with 6 bullets in him.
The photos tell some of the technical side