Sonic boom returns home

“Hoedspruit” has an almost legendary status to anyone with a keen interest in aviation especially SAAF fighter aircraft. Shrouded in secrecy, many aspects were never made public. This changed during 2000 when the base hosted the relief effort of the USAF in Mozambique as part of Operation Atlas Response brought about by Cyclone Eline. From the broadcasted images the world could not believe what a world class facility Hoedspruit provided to the visitors as being on par with accepted standards for far larger Air Forces.

Build as the primary bastion of the north eastern sector and as an advanced fighter base it served as home for most of the fighter jet squadrons including our premier squadron the famous “Billy Boys” (1 Squadron, equipped with the venerable Mirage F1 AZ).  It also housed 2 Squadron with their well known Mirages IIIs. Due to rationalisation those days have long since gone at Hoedspruit as 2 Sqdn was deactivated in 1990 only to be re-activated during 1993 with the Cheetah C fighter aircraft at AFB Louis Trichardt (now AFB Makhado). 1 Squadron as our most senior Squadron was disbanded in 1997.

Example of the Argos Ball

Cheetah D with V3S training missiles at Hoedspruit

In the later years only the remaining Impalas kept the spirit of jet fighter aircraft alive in this part of the Bushveld. However the Impalas were retired in 2005 and 85 CFS moved to AFB Makhado during 2006 to be re-equipped with the Hawk Mk120 LIFT.

Since then it has gone fairly quiet over Hoedspruit with the only permanently based Sqdn that of the helicopter unit of 19 Sqdn – itself a Sqdn with an illustrious history. During March 2007 the Sqdn performed the test and evaluation of the Argos Ball on the Augusta A109 with a large number of flights at night time.This system provides the A109 with an effective night time capability with the use of a powerful thermal imaging system with live video capability. In recent years this once premier airbase only played host to fighter aircraft on the odd occasion as part of training exercises as demonstrated by 2 Sqdn during late June 2007 as part of a short notice fighter deployment exercise.

2 Sqdn deployment to Hoedspruit