Africa’s biggest privately owned defense and aerospace company said it’s won orders for the Mwari, a reconnaissance and precision-strike aircraft, and the first delivery will take place this week after an 11-year development period. Nine aircraft will be supplied to two air forces, the company said, saying it can’t yet disclose their identity.
“We had this kind of unusual skill set, which had come about because of the mistake of history that was the apartheid-era aerospace industry.” Ivor Ichikowitz, Paramount’s founder, said in an interview. “And the skills set was inherent in people that were in their late fifties. And we wanted to develop a project that would give us the ability to train the next generation of aerospace engineers.”
“We’re targeting any country in the world that has to deal with an asymmetrical threat,” Ichikowitz said in a reference to countries combating terrorists or rebels. “We’re targeting any country in the world that is fighting against an enemy with a $30,000 land Rover. And they’re using a $150,000 stinger missile” to eliminate that.
The two-pilot aircraft can carry as much as a ton of precision-guided arms and with a lighter load has a range of about 960 kilometers and a speed of around 435 kiometers-per-hour . It has an interchangeable pod that allows reconnaissance and other equipment to be swapped out within two hours so that the aircraft can be used for different purposes.
Rooivalk = kestrel, not Red Falcon.
Sexy COINcraft. With dozens of low-intensity, asymmetric conflicts in sparsely populated regions, in various parts of Africa and the ME, one would think there'd be more interest in this platform.
Congratulate paramount for a tour de force. Mentioning Rooivalk adds nothing but snide toward Mwari.
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