South African aerospace company Denel Aviation has confirmed that it is leading a joint project with Armscor to sell former South African Air Force (SAAF) Denel Cheetah C supersonic fighters to the South American country of Ecuador.

Denel Aviation is a business of the State-owned Denel defence industrial group, and Armscor is South Africa’s defence procurement, disposals, and research and development agency.

“This is a really big project,” reports Denel Aviation CEO Ismail Dockrat. “We are very excited about it.” On Friday, Engineering News Online revealed that Ecuadorean Defence Minister Javier Ponce had told his country’s media that Ecuador was negotiating with South Africa to buy 12 Cheetah C single-seat fighters.

“The programme would involve the supply of the aircraft, plus the maintenance of the Cheetahs over time,” explains Dockrat. Armscor and Denel are both involved because the former is responsible for the disposal of retired and surplus South African National Defence Force material and equipment, while the latter holds the design authority for, and has the maintenance experience with, the Cheetah.

According to the Ecuadorean newspaper El Universo, that country has, in principle, decided to acquire the Cheetahs, but an actual purchase depends on the outcome of the financial negotiations, which will start in December. Ecuador has budgeted an initial $35-million for this programme, but expects the total costs to be higher.

According to the newspaper, representatives of Denel offered Cheetahs to Ecuador on August 26, while visiting the Ecuadorean Air Force's Cotopaxi Air Base. The Cheetah Cs were retired by the SAAF last year, in anticipation of the arrival of new Saab Gripen fighters, which are now being delivered.

Ecuador is seeking to modernise its fighter force at minimum cost, and reportedly South Africa is offering the Cheetahs at lower prices than Chile and Spain are seeking for fighters that are now surplus to their requirements. Indeed, the prices sought by Chile and Spain exceed the fighter acquisition budget available to the Ecuadorian Air Force.

Further, the Cheetahs have quite modern avionics systems, apparently equivalent to those of the modernised Israel Aircraft Industries Kfir CE fighters already operated by Ecuador. The Cheetahs would be operated alongside the Kfirs.

The South African fighters, highly modernised Dassault Mirage IIICs originally bought from France, would most likely replace Ecuador's current force of Dassault F1 fighters (a type once also operated by South Africa and replaced in SAAF service by the Cheetah), and perhaps its Sepecat Jaguar fighter-bombers.

It is not known if Ecuador will also see to acquire South African weapons to go with the Cheetah fighters.

Venezuela has offered to transfer to Ecuador, free of charge, six Mirage 50 fighters. But these are themselves obsolete and would not represent any modernisation of the Ecuadorian fighter fleet. Indeed, they are actually more obsolete than the Mirage F1s Ecuador seeks to replace.

In recent years, most major South American countries have launched programmes to modernise their fighter forces. For example, Venezuela has bought Sukhoi SU-30MKV fighters from Russia, and Chile has purchased both new and second-hand examples of American Lockheed Martin F-16, while Brazil is expected to chose its next fighter type with a matter of weeks.

Denel previously offered Cheetahs to Brazil, as a interim fighter to temporarily replace that country's Mirage IIIEs, which had reached the end of their lives. But, Brazil selected second-hand Dassault Mirage 2000Bs and Cs instead.