Rooivalk is going to DRC

[KhoisanX]

Why?

A few major reasons:

The US arms embargo was only lifted in 1997, so the Hellfire couldn't be integrated and the Mokopa wasn't ready at the time. Who would want to buy an attack helicopter without a long range anti-armour missile?
This made the Apache a very easy choice for countries like the UK. Whether South Africa has the political clout to sell major weapon systems is also debatable though.

With only 11 aircraft operational the cost of major upgrades is truly enormous on a per-unit basis, so the Rooivalk lags far behind the likes of the Apache Longbow in terms of systems and sensors.

It's heavy and very powerful since it's designed to operate primarily from hot, high altitude bases. This makes lighter, possibly cheaper and more advanced options like the Tiger and Mangusta far more appealing to most countries.

It competes with the Tiger, hence Eurocopter might not be very eager to provide support for the Rooivalk.

 

[Sneeky]

I bet M23 are about to go shopping for some Stingers.

 

[Hamish McPanji]

Nothing like battle testing now we will see if they can survive the SA7s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strela_2

Reminds me of this

http://youtu.be/0TZq25wrCDo

 

[ponder]

No, the problem was when Rooivalk was first launched, the USA played dirty, protecting Boeing, the American company, from competition by threatening withdrawal of support/funding from countries that bought it.

Think the bigger issue was we could not fit 3rd party (US) electronic systems (avionics, guidance, missiles etc) to the chopper as the US would not license it to SA as it would compete with their own industries. So whoever was gonna buy from us had no option to fit systems of their choice to the chopper. Overall it's a bloody good chopper designed to work in harsh environments with a minimal support crew. But yeah the arms business is a dirty one.

 

[Sinbad]

Think the bigger issue was we could not fit 3rd party (US) electronic systems (avionics, guidance, missiles etc) to the chopper as the US would not license it to SA as it would compete with their own industries. So whoever was gonna buy from us had no option to fit systems of their choice to the chopper. Overall it's a bloody good chopper designed to work in harsh environments with a minimal support crew. But yeah the arms business is a dirty one.

The avionics and guidance was far superior to what the apache had at the time. The rooivalk pioneered the shoot-where-you're-looking cannon...

AFAIK the rooivalk is still the only attack chopper that can do a loop?

 

[Compton_effect]

Its a beautiful beast. You only need to stand next to it to know its a true African animal and should not be underestimated.
But the EU and the US killed it off when it turned out to be a viable competitor to the Apache and the Mangusta.
The US from the avionics and weapons side, and Airbus from the hardware. In 1996 we only had enough gearboxes for three of them.
But the market is changing. It has slowly been matured and upgraded. Who knows - maybe we might one day see a full squadron in Air Force colors.