id

*-Tl J ^ • f c ' "**•

308 FLIGHT International, 20 February 1969

Israeli Air Force Agusta-Bell 205, one of about 20 received last year, taking part in recent winter manoeuvres by the Israeli Army in the Judaean Desert

mini DEFENCE

WHAT MALAYSIA REALLY WANTS MALAYSIA'S AIR DEFENCE REQUIREMENTS (see Flight for January 30, page 185) are still not settled, but there seem to have been some moves during the past week towards British equipment as opposed to the possibility of an order for Mirages.

One of the problems facing the Malaysian Government is air cover for her far-flung (in terms of distance from Kuala Lumpur) territories in East Malaysia.

The new development which has occurred since the French mission to Kuala Lumpur on January 24 (Flight, January 23) has been a meeting between the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and the High Com­missioner, Sir Michael Walker, and C-in-C Far East Forces, General Sir Michael Carver, when one of the ques­tions discussed was that of continued

New SAAF Equipment? REQUIREMENTS for the South African Air Force, to enable it to give effective support to the country's Army and Navy, were outlined in a recent speech by the Defence Minister, Mr Pieter Botha. Speaking in Johannesburg to the South African Air Force Association, he said that for the purposes of such support, "we have or will shortly have aircraft for maritime reconnaissance, day fighter aircraft for support of ground forces, all-weather aircraft, various types of heli­copters, light reconnaissance planes, com­munications aircraft and bombers." He gave no details of the type or number of aircraft South Africa would acquire, n--r any indication as to where they WOL 1 be obtained.

SAAF squadrons at present operate Buccaneers, Canberras, Mirages and Shackletons, in addition to transports and an 80-strong helicopter, arm. The Citizen Air Force has Sabre, Vampire and Harvard squadrons.

RAF fighter cover, based at Labuan off the North Borneo coast. This would aid Malaysian forces against possible designs by the Philippines against this part of Malaysian territory.

If the Government in Kuala Lumpur could be assured of this sort of support from Britain, it is likely that she would consider the purchase of Harriers instead of Mirages.

A British "package offer," worth £14 million, which would give Malaysia a mix of Hunters and Harriers, plus appropriate training, was reported from Kuala Lumpur at the end of last week. It is also possible that the RAF might keep a force of Lighnings in Singapore after the British withdrew in 1971.

Britain is clearly keen to solve Malaysia's defence problems before the Commonwealth talks in Australia later this year.

Multiple Warheads for R N Polaris? IF THE ROYAL NAVY should consider the addition of MIRV (multiple indepen­dently targeted re-entry vehicle) nuclear warheads to the Polaris missiles carried by RN submarines, as has been reported in the past week, this would indicate a British Ministry of Defence determina­tion to maintain a nuclear capability at least for the next decade.

The system, a cluster of up to ten nuclear bombs each fitted with its own guidance system, is still under develop­ment in the United States, for Minute-man 888 ICBMs and for Poseidon, which is to replace Polaris. If MIRV is fitted to Polaris, this would involve structural alterations in RN submarines and would mean that the cost would be extremely high although it would be an alternative to a Poseidon purchase. So far, however, in view of the state of MIRV technology—the system is still in the R&D stage—no enquiries have been made about a possible purchase.

Galaxy Progress TAKE-OFF WEIGHT and endurance of the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy • have been steadily increasing during the flight test programme. It recently took off at a weight of 635,4501b (288,000kg) and on February 10 flew for 7hr 56min—its longest non-stop flight to date—on a test of anti-icing characteristics.

A Galaxy is to appear at this year's Paris Salon (May 29 to June 8) and afterwards is coming to Britain for an associated container exhibition at Lon­don Heathrow on June 9 and 10.

Servicing Israel's French Aircraft ISRAEL is TO MANUFACTURE its own spares for French aircraft operated by the Israeli Air Force, so as to beat the French embargo. The deputy managing director of Israel Aircraft Industries, Mr Asher Ben Yosef, has said that his com­pany was adapting itself to cope with the situation. IAI deputy general manager (engineering), Prof Moshe Arens, has commented that the French military aircraft industry might suffer from the embargo; as a result of operational information provided by the Israeli Air Force, many modifications and improve­ments had been incorporated into French military aircraft.

Thundersticks for Thunderchiefs THUNDERSTICK MODIFICATIONS to the Republic F-105D fighter bomber will enable pilots to carry out visual bomb delivery from low altitudes with either free fall or retarded weapons. As a result, circular error probabilities in delivery of these weapons may be as much as seven times better than those for the present F-105.

The system, known as Thunderstick 2, has been designed by Fairchild Hiller's Republic Aviation Division, which is carrying out the modifications under a USAF programme. It is stated that Thunderstick will also aid navigational accuracy, providing good velocity and attitude information before weapon release, despite aircraft manoeuvres. It