The Denel Group, South Africa’s State-owned defence and aerospace business, is upbeat on the future of its Small African Regional Aircraft (Sara) project. “We have progressed well on the Small African Regional Aircraft concept, and have developed a full-scale mock-up as part of the R&D [research and development] process,” reported acting group CEO Zwelakhe Ntshepe at Denel’s 2015/2016 annual results media briefing on Tuesday. “This is a national flagship project Denel is honoured to be involved in.”

Originally called the South African Regional Aircraft, the Sara concept was publicly launched at the African Aerospace and Defence exposition in 2014, although work on the idea started within the group in 2012. It would be a 24-seat, pressurised, high wing twin-turboprop aircraft, able to carry passengers, freight or a mixture of both and able to operate from quite rough airstrips.

“We have sponsorships being offered for the development of the aircraft from other SOEs [State-Owned Enterprises],” he said in reply to a question from Engineering News. “But we have also presented this aircraft to the Economic Cluster [of Cabinet Ministers].” This had created great interest in the project. “We hope, in the next two to three years, to have a real aircraft and not [just] a mock-up.” He pointed out that the Sara was a very efficient (including fuel efficient) design.

Another potential aerospace project for the group would be the development of a new version of the Rooivalk (“Kestrel” in English) attack helicopter, generally referred to as the Rooivalk Mark (Mk) 2. In response to a question from another journalist, Ntshepe revealed that the minimum order required to make such a project feasible would be 75 helicopters. He added that Denel was talking to countries in Latin America and Asia to see if this could be achieved.

However, there is another project which must not be confused with the Rooivalk Mk 2 proposal – the upgrade of the current Rooivlak Mk 1 helicopters, in service with the South African Air Force. “We have been approved to do an upgrade on the [current] Rooivalk, which we call [the] Rooivalk 1.1 [upgrade].”

He also confirmed that Denel’s two major divisions active in the aerospace sector, Denel Aviation and Denel Aerostructures, are being merged. Both are located on the group’s Kempton Park site at OR Tambo International Airport. “The Aerostructures, Aviation merger is in progress. The process will be completed in the next month or two. However, we don’t expect any jobs will be lost,” he affirmed. The name of the merged division will be released in due course.