Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

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TheGreenGoblin
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Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Dec 13, 2021 6:32 pm

I am currently reading Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes (Top Secret and Other Anecdotes) by Kobus De Villiers...
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
https://www.defenceweb.co.za/resources/ ... anekdotes/

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
Re-engine.JPG
mirage1.JPG
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Dec 14, 2021 8:40 am

Further comment on the Russian engine upgrade from Kobus De Villiers...
The discussion about the Mig engine project seem to generate a lot of questions. One that is often repeated is: "Why were we working with old aircraft and old engines?"

The guys seem to forget that this took place circa 1990. The SAAF Cheetah D and D2s were delivered by Atlas from July 1986 to July 1988. The Cheetah E was delivered from March 1988 to April 1990. These were the latest frontline fighters we had and were equipped with the latest electronics, EW and in-flight refueling. The wings and other fatigue-critical parts were replaced and Canards fitted. These planes were essentially new and had a long life ahead of them. The only thing that was old, were the Atar engines.

At that time the best engines in that size were the G E F-404 (which powered the F-18), the M-88 (which powered the Rafale) and the RD-33 (which powered the Mig 29).

The GE F-404 first flew in the F-18 in 1978. The RD-33 first flew in the Mig 29 in 1981. In Fact, the Gripen that the SAAF has now, is powered by the Volvo RM-12, which is a GE F-404 built in Sweden under licence!

So, at the time this was very good technology to get exposed to and it would have powered our highly upgraded Cheetahs perfectly.

With this in mind, I can explain what we did with these engines. The modified RD-33, now called SMR-95, was shorter and much lighter than the Atar 09K50. We asked the Klimov guys to put the attachment points on the SMR-95 in such a wat that we could bolt it onto the same front attachments as the old Atar. These attachment were placed in such a way that the CG of the aircraft with the new engine and gearbox would be in exactly the same place as before. This gave us the freedom that we did not have to change the flight controls or fuel usage sequence. The pilot would also just have to be trained on the new engine controls and instrumentation, the aircraft handling would be the same.

Since the new engine was shorter than the old one by 750mm, we had to add an extension the the intake duct between the airframe and the engine face.

We also wanted to optimize the a/c performance more than just the gain from the engine thrust, so we looked at ways to reduce inlet scoops and bleed air for the air-conditioning of the avionics. The guys came up with the brilliant idea of designing this inlet duct extension into a heat exchanger! This save a lot of drag and engine bleed air loss. The photos attached explains it a bit.
F1K.JPG
F1tailcone.JPG
What a difference 10 years can make. In 1984 there was the Rooi Gevaar (Red Danger or one of the three K's, Kommuniste, Katolieke en Kaffirs) and the USSR was a mortal enemy. Roll forward a decade and South African engineers and technicians were in Russian co-operating on fitting a Russian built engine to the Mirage/Cheetah.

Edited to say - I thoroughly recommend Kobus De Villiers' book (the original is in Afrikaans, which is what I am reading, but the book has been very well translated into English as well). As a Saffer, his writing really strikes a chord in its veracity and evocation of a time that passed.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#3 Post by Pinky the pilot » Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:32 am

TGG; How does one go about obtaining the English Language version?

Tango15 Fear not; I haven't forgotten.
You only live twice. Once when you're born. Once when you've looked death in the face.

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:51 am

Pinky the pilot wrote:
Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:32 am
TGG; How does one go about obtaining the English Language version?

Tango15 Fear not; I haven't forgotten.
Pinky it is available on Amazon. I recommend the Kindle version...

https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=Top+Secre ... _sb_noss_2
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#5 Post by tango15 » Tue Dec 14, 2021 1:26 pm

Pinky the pilot wrote:
Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:32 am
TGG; How does one go about obtaining the English Language version?

Tango15 Fear not; I haven't forgotten.
Fear is something that was beaten out of me many years ago in school, Pinky! :))

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#6 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:23 am

tango15 wrote:
Tue Dec 14, 2021 1:26 pm
Pinky the pilot wrote:
Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:32 am
TGG; How does one go about obtaining the English Language version?

Tango15 Fear not; I haven't forgotten.
Fear is something that was beaten out of me many years ago in school, Pinky! :))
Talking of tango15, one of the dramatis personae in this book, evoked the travails of an aero sales marketing director in Africa, and for a short while I thought it might have been tango15 himself but the surname didn't fit.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#7 Post by tango15 » Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:13 am

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:23 am
tango15 wrote:
Tue Dec 14, 2021 1:26 pm
Pinky the pilot wrote:
Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:32 am
TGG; How does one go about obtaining the English Language version?

Tango15 Fear not; I haven't forgotten.
Fear is something that was beaten out of me many years ago in school, Pinky! :))
Talking of tango15, one of the dramatis personae in this book, evoked the travails of an aero sales marketing director in Africa, and for a short while I thought it might have been tango15 himself but the surname didn't fit.
No, I didn't do Africa, ever, when I was selling flying machines. Managed to studiously avoid it, even when I was - twice - about to be sent to Angola and/or Mozambique, because of my Portuguese, but in both cases something more urgent and lucrative turned up! :))

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Re: Uiters Geheim en Ander Anekdotes

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:51 pm

Atlas.JPG

Private military corporations, in their modern form, appeared fairly recently. They proliferated in the post-Cold War environment, taking advantage of the privatization and outsourcing of functions previously undertaken by governments across the globe.

One of their specialisms is dissimilar air combat training, so-called ‘Red Air’. A concept familiar to anybody who has ever seen Top Gun (1986), it pits fighter pilots against adversaries using equipment and tactics similar to those employed in real combat.

Currently, NATO buys most of its Red Air services from a handful of PMCs which operate old, heavily modified aircraft flown by ex-military pilots. Draken International is one of these companies. If possesses various kinds of jets, from light attack A-4s to ex-Soviet MiG-21s. In 2017, it underwent one of its largest upgrades yet, by purchasing a fleet of Mach 2 interceptors called Atlas Cheetah.

For a layman, the aircraft was pretty obscure. It was a South African design, based on an Israeli design, based on a French design. How could that happen?

The birth of the Cheetah
The story of the development of the Cheetah is more interesting than its operational record. As with many similar projects, the aircraft was a stop-gap solution, and like numerous stop-gap solutions, it became a near-permanent one.

Between the mid-1960s and the 1990s, South Africa was involved in the South African border war, a conflict mired in politics, ethnic tensions and controversy. By the early 1980s, South Africa, under the Apartheid regime, faced international sanctions and had no opportunity to purchase military assets from abroad. At the same time, it was squared off against the Angolan army, generously supplied with Soviet MiG-23 fighters.

South Africa’s own air force was unprepared for this. It was primarily composed of older British and French aircraft, with a handful of Dassault Mirage IIIs and Mirage F1s serving as main fighter jets.

Only F1s could be considered modern by that time. They were delivered between 1975 and 1977, just before the international arms embargo on South Africa went into effect. The plan was to procure more than 100 of the jets, completely replacing the ageing Mirage IIIs. Only 48 were delivered.

The IIIs, delivered in the early 1960s, had neither the speed, the maneuverability, nor – crucially – the adequate weaponry and electronics to combat the MiG-23s. They performed well in ground attack duties, but that was not enough.

So, South Africa had to either create and build a new fighter jet on its own, or upgrade an existing one to meet the challenge. It went for both.

The country had some experience in manufacturing jet aircraft. Atlas Aircraft Corporation – a government-owned company – had been producing MB-326 trainers on license from Italian Aermacchi. It even bought a license for the Mirage F1, but that was revoked due to sanctions.

So the Atlas Carver project was initiated, a plan to build a home-grown fourth-generation fighter jet that could rival competitors such as the MiG-29 and the F-16.

But even with significant investment and the hiring of a number of foreign engineers, the new aircraft would be ready no earlier than the mid-1990s. Without a quick stop-gap solution, the South African Air Force would remain outmatched for nearly two decades.

The only way forward was to upgrade one of the existing jets to a suitable level. Luckily, Mirage IIIs had a record of such upgrades. Mirage 5, IAI Nesher and IAI Kfir were three projects that took the airframe of the Mirage III and adapted it for various needs by replacing avionics, weaponry and other components. All three had one thing in common: they were produced for or by Israel.

South Africa already had a history of military collaboration with Israel, up to and including trading aircraft parts. So, the assistance in the work on Mirages was only natural. A secret at first, the involvement of IAI engineers became a widely-acknowledged fact later on, and resulted in the Cheetah being a near-identical twin of the Israeli IAI Kfir.

The transformation
So, how were Cheetahs born? An often repeated, but difficult to source fact states that South Africa took its 1960s-vintage Mirage IIIs and replaced approximately 50% of their components.

Dog-tooth extensions on the leading wing edge were added, improving resistance to stall. Canards – small wings in front of the main wing – improved low-speed handling characteristics even further, as did new strakes on the nose.

Said nose received the bulk of modifications, as now it housed a new radar, a vastly upgraded cockpit and cutting-edge avionics.

Three variants of the Cheetah were made: the pre-production Cheetah E, the twin-seat trainer Cheetah D, and the final Cheetah C, the latter of which became the main fighter jet of the South African Air Force. Es and Ds used lightweight Elta EL-2001 radars, while the Cs were fitted with much more powerful Elbit EL/M-2032s – the same radars used on the Israeli F-16, Indian HAL Tejas, and multiple other contemporary fighter jets.

Cheetah C also received an upgraded engine, Mirage F1’s Atar 9K50, which vastly improved the maximum take-off weight, allowing the aircraft to carry more fuel and armaments.

Further improvements were made by adding a full-fledged electronic warfare suite and new countermeasures. The Cheetah even had a helmet-mounted sight (an incredibly advanced system for its time and something that some 5th generation fighter jets lack).

How did all these improvements affect the aircraft? It’s difficult to tell. Despite the investment, South Africa never used its Cheetahs to their full extent. After production they were relegated to interceptor duties far away from the frontline, while combat missions continued to be performed by Mirage F1s, Blackburn Buccaneers and other older jets.

Mirage IIIs gained the reputation of being almost supernaturally good at the so-called one-circle dogfights, situations where, after passing each other, pilots would turn in the same direction trying to aim at the enemy faster than the enemy. It is likely that Cheetah only improved on this metric. After all, its twin IAI Kfir certainly did.

However, other aspects may have suffered. Cheetah had neither very good thrust-to-weight ratio, nor range. According to some of the people who flew the jet, it wasn’t as stable or as easy to fly as the Mirage F1.

Can the Cheetah be called a fourth-generation jet? Fighter jet generations are a marketing tactic but they offer an easy and comprehensible way to compare different aircraft.

One of the selling points of the Kfir is that, despite the outdated airframe, in terms of avionics and electronics it is a true fourth-generation jet. The same can be said about Cheetah. While it may have been a one-trick pony in a close-range dogfight, its new radar, electronic warfare and weapon systems could rival newer fighters, and even at the end of the 1980s that was often the deciding factor in a fight.

The Atlas Carver project eventually failed so, for a while, the Cheetah remained the most modern aircraft in South Africa’s possession. In the mid-1990s, sweeping political changes in the country allowed the sanctions to be lifted, and the South African Air Force began shopping for a true modern fighter jet.

In 1999 its choice fell on the Swedish Saab JAS 39 Gripen. Cheetahs faced retirement and some of them were sold to Chile and Equador, to supplement their own fleets of Mirage 5 and F1 derivatives. But, as already mentioned, Cheetah’s stardom came in 2017. After picking up 12 of them, Draken International added its own upgrades.

They were the most advanced jets in Draken‘s inventory until 2021 when the company announced the purchase of ex-Norwegian Air Force F-16s. Cheetahs became a workhorse, used in training NATO air forces’ personnel in how to deal with dissimilar opponents, performing mock combat against alliance’s newest fighters.

So not completely gone and not completely forgotten.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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