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Defence & Aerospace
Drones Council launched to expedite advancement of regulatory environment
By: Donna Slater 15th July 2020 The Drone Council South Africa (DCSA) was launched on July 15 with its first webinar to update global stakeholders in the private and public sectors on progress being made in the drones industry, both internationally and in South Africa. The DCSA was formed in part to address South Africa’s... →
Major British aerospace manufacturer unveils ‘Factory 4.0’
By: Rebecca Campbell 14th July 2020 UK-based global major aerospace and defence group BAE Systems on Monday unveiled its new intelligent factory at its complex in Warton in Lancashire, England. This factory has been developed to support the UK’s Tempest next (sixth) generation combat aircraft technologies programme. The group... →
BAE Systems/Fairfield Control Systems new intelligent workstations
Indian Air Force receives last batch of Boeing military helicopters ordered in 2015
By: Rebecca Campbell 13th July 2020 US global major aerospace and defence group Boeing has concluded deliveries of helicopters to the Indian Air Force (IAF), ordered under a September 2015 contract. The order was for 22 AH-64E Apache attack and 15 CH-47F(I) Chinook heavy transport helicopters. The last batch of the helicopters... →
All Nasa’s new heavy space rocket components are now qualified for flight
By: Rebecca Campbell 10th July 2020 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) – the US space agency – has announced that the structural testing campaign for its new Space Launch System (SLS) was completed on June 24. The SLS is Nasa’s new heavy rocket, which will launch into space its upcoming Artemis crewed Moon... →
Structural testing completed for first flight of America’s Orion spacecraft
By: Rebecca Campbell 10th July 2020 The US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has announced that structural testing of its Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission had been successfully concluded. The Orion was designed to carry astronauts deeper into space than any previous human spacecraft.... →
Numsa, Sacca welcome adjournment of SAA business rescue vote
By: Rebecca Campbell 10th July 2020 In a joint statement on June 26 the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) expressed their relief that 69% of the creditors of South African Airways (SAA) voted to adjourn (to July 14) the vote on the proposed business rescue... →
Drones being used to help governments fight the Covid-19 pandemic
By: Donna Slater 10th July 2020 With the onset of Covid-19, technology has come to the fore, as people have been forced to work from home or increasingly remotely to ensure physical distancing, thereby increasing reliance on remote, and even autonomous, methods of conducting duties, with keen interest in the potential use of... →
Parliamentary Defence Committee warns that budget cuts are endangering key projects
By: Rebecca Campbell 9th July 2020 Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans has warned that cost savings forced on the country’s defence acquisition and research and development agency Armscor could endanger key projects. The agency’s budget has been cut by R120-million. The committee praised Armscor for... →
Airbus wins new generation satellite order form Australian telecoms group
By: Rebecca Campbell 6th July 2020 Airbus Defence and Space has been awarded an end-to-end turnkey contract for a telecommunications satellite by Australia’s leading satellite operator and number two telecommunications company, Optus. This is Airbus’ first contract from an Australian operator and is the fourth order for Airbus’... →
Greater drone deployability in Africa requires regulatory allowances, supply chain integration
By: Donna Slater 3rd July 2020 Drones are being successfully deployed to support medical and humanitarian projects across Africa, but for a greater, more sustainable impact, they will need to be fully integrated into supply chains within an enabling regulatory environment, according to panellists who spoke during a webinar on... →
Trade unions slam Denel management over unpaid salaries, head to court
By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd July 2020 The Solidarity trade union has blasted the South African government and the management of State-owned defence industrial group Denel over their mishandling of the affairs of the company, causing it to be in so bad a condition as to be unable to pay its employees their full salaries. In May, some... →
Proposed business rescue plan would see severe cut in SAA’s fleet
By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd July 2020 In their business rescue plan for State-owned national flag carrier South African Airways (SAA), published on June 16, business rescue practitioners (BRPs) Siviwe Dongwana and Leslie Matuson proposed a massive downsizing of the airline’s fleet, followed by a slow expansion after it resumed... →
African govts urged to apply ICAO guidance to restart air travel
By: Rebecca Campbell 3rd July 2020 Three international air transport sector organisations have urged African governments to harmonise the safe restart of their air services by swiftly implementing the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO’s) global guidelines for the restoration of safe air transport, entitled Takeoff:... →
South Africa’s defence electronics sector sees significant acquisition deal
By: Rebecca Campbell 1st July 2020 Local defence company Hensoldt South Africa (Hensoldt SA) has agreed to buy the Defence and Security and Air Traffic Management (ATM) business units of another South African company, Tellumat. The agreement was signed in a virtual ceremony on June 26. It will come into force once all the... →
Airbus announces widespread job cuts to deal with effects of Covid-19 crisis
By: Rebecca Campbell 1st July 2020 Europe-based global major aerospace group Airbus announced at the end of June that it was going to have to cut 15 000 jobs over the next 12 months – from now until the northern summer of 2021 – and resize the operations of its commercial aircraft business. These steps were being taken to meet the... →
Members of all Airbus’ current airliner families in flight – from front to rear: an A220-300, an A319neo, an A330neo, an A350-1000, a Beluga transport (developed for Airbus’ own use) and an A380
US regulator approves next step in re-certifying Boeing 737 MAX
By: Rebecca Campbell 29th June 2020 The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has told Boeing that it can start test flights of its troubled 737 MAX single-aisle airliner with FAA pilots aboard, American media have reported. These test flights would be an important step towards re-certifying the aircraft to carry passengers. The... →
US space agency awards major commercial lunar lander contract
By: Rebecca Campbell 26th June 2020 The US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), has awarded a $199.5-million contract to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, based space robotics company Astrobotic Technology, to land Nasa’s Viper lunar rover at the Moon’s south pole in late 2023. The Viper will be carried... →
Faced with aviation crisis, Aerosud restructures, diversifies and will launch new product
By: Rebecca Campbell 26th June 2020 South African private-sector aerostructures company Aerosud remains optimistic about its future, despite suffering significant short-term hits from both the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX airliner early last year and the current Covid-19 pandemic. Aerosud is a supplier of airframe components to... →
Trade union attacks State and Denel management over unpaid salaries and goes to court
By: Rebecca Campbell 24th June 2020 The Solidarity trade union has blasted the South African government and the management of State-owned defence industrial group Denel over their mishandling of the affairs of the company, causing it to be in so bad a condition as to be unable to pay its employees their full salaries. In May, some... →
Zuma trial: French arms company Thales intends to challenge racketeering charge
By: News24Wire 23rd June 2020 French arms company Thales' legal team says they will challenge racketeering charges brought against it in their criminal matter with co-accused former President Jacob Zuma, potentially delaying the trial further. →
FMCSA supplies 50 000 face shields for frontline health workers
By: Donna Slater 22nd June 2020 Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa (FMCSA) has assembled and supplied 50 000 face shields for the US Department of Defence to shore up its response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Southern African region. The face shields are being produced in a specially prepared and sanitised facility at... →
South African munitions and explosives company announces plant engineering contract
By: Rebecca Campbell 22nd June 2020 South African defence company Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM), part of the Germany-based Rheinmetall Defence group, has reported that it has won a more than R200-million ($13-million) industrial plant engineering contract. The project includes the upgrading of an existing plant and will start as... →
Major Brazilian aerospace group secures export financing to strengthen its cash position
By: Rebecca Campbell 19th June 2020 Brazil-based global major aerospace group Embraer has reported that it has secured export financing of up to $600-million for the next four years. The company is the world’s number one manufacturer of commercial airliners with 150 seats or less. It stated that the loans had been obtained at... →
An Embraer E190-E2 airliner
Trade union taking Denel to court over non-payment of salaries
By: Rebecca Campbell 19th June 2020 The UASA trade union has announced that it is launching an urgent application in the Labour Court, against State-owned entity (SOE) Denel, over the non-payment of workers’ salaries by the group. The union has also written to the CEO of Denel, which is a defence industrial group, on behalf of its... →
Brazilian aerospace group Embraer reports net loss for first quarter
By: Rebecca Campbell 19th June 2020 Brazilian major aerospace group Embraer, the world’s number one manufacturer of commercial jets with up to 150 seats, and the world’s number three commercial jet manufacturer, after Airbus and Boeing (in alphabetical order), has reported a net loss of $292-million attributable to its shareholders... →
April saw almost total collapse in air travel demand, but early signs of recovery appearing
By: Rebecca Campbell 19th June 2020 The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has reported that it has detected signs of a recovery in air passenger demand, following a gigantic collapse in April. Air passenger demand during April was 94.3% lower than in April 2019, a fall never before seen in this statistical series since... →
Denel briefs Parliament on the future opportunities it has identified
By: Rebecca Campbell 18th June 2020 Liquidity-starved State-owned defence industrial group Denel has identified opportunities that would allow it to generate revenues and even create new revenue streams in the coming years. It reported this in its recent briefing to Parliament (which was released by the legislature on June 17). The... →
The Rooivalk combat support helicopter is Denel’s flagship product
Denel briefs Parliament on its restructuring progress 
By: Rebecca Campbell 17th June 2020 In a presentation released by Parliament on June 17, financially-embattled State-owned defence industrial group Denel reported on its progress and plans regarding its turnaround strategy. The group pointed out that it had been classified as a national security asset, with a main role of... →
To deal with aviation crisis, Aerosud restructures, diversifies and will launch new product
By: Rebecca Campbell 15th June 2020 South African private sector aerostructures company Aerosud remains optimistic about its future, despite suffering significant short-term hits from both the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX airliner early last year and the current Covid-19 pandemic. Aerosud is a supplier of airframe components to... →
The protracted grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft has negatively impacted on Aersosud.
Underfunding has put SANDF in dire position, lawmakers warned
By: Rebecca Campbell 12th June 2020 In a briefing to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans, the Department of Defence (DoD) has warned that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is in dire need of rejuvenation. The briefing was delivered on May 27. The DoD started its briefing by quoting the... →
Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes history with first commercial crewed spaceflight
By: Rebecca Campbell 12th June 2020 Space history was made on May 30 when two American astronauts (Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley) were carried into space by a commercial spacecraft. This was the Crew Dragon space capsule, launched on a Falcon 9 rocket, the entire system being the product of the SpaceX company, founded by South... →
SANSA and Nasa developing project for new Matijiesfontein ground station
By: Rebecca Campbell 12th June 2020 The project for a new deep space network ground station in South Africa, which is a collaborative venture between the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and its US counterpart, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), is still in its study phase, SANSA Space Operations... →
Parliament’s Defence Committee concerned about Defence Works Formation’s progress
By: Rebecca Campbell 11th June 2020 The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans (Defence Committee) has urged the Department of Defence (DOD) to develop a thoroughgoing plan to create a fully-functional Defence Works Formation (DWF) and to implement it in an incremental manner. This followed a briefing... →
Airbus reports on progress by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft
By: Rebecca Campbell 8th June 2020 Airbus Defence and Space, a division of the giant aerospace group Airbus, reported on June 8 that the Solar Orbiter (SolO) spacecraft is now some 105-million kilometres from Earth, heading for the Sun. (The distance between the Earth and the Sun is nearly 152-million kilometres.) Airbus designed... →
An artist’s impression of the SolO spacecraft approaching the Sun
Air transport bodies appeal to South African government to support local airlines
By: Rebecca Campbell 5th June 2020 The International Air Transport Association (Iata), the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) and the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa (Barsa) have jointly appealed to the South African government to provide direct financial relief for the country’s airline sector. This... →
Global airline debt soars as a result of Covid-19 counter measures
By: Rebecca Campbell 5th June 2020 In its latest briefing regarding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (and the near total halt in commercial air passenger traffic to help try to contain it) on the global airline industry, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) has reported that it expected global airline debt to jump... →
Plan unveiled to prevent aircraft corrosion
5th June 2020 As hundreds of aircraft remain grounded owing to plummeting air travel demand amid pandemic restrictions, the question arising is how airlines can preserve as much value as possible, while high-dollar assets sit idle for an indefinite period. To address this critical need, corrosion solution... →
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