Swartkop SAAF museum

[mart]

Last month I visited a fantastic country, which until the end of that month used to fly these around:



and some time before that these were taken out of service. (actually I'm not sure if all or just that one were taken out)


Yes, it was that beautiful country at the botom of Africa
As you see I paid a visit to the SAAF museum at Swartkop.
Well..it was more a hit and run, I had half an hour to work through the static. Which is not by any means enough..
Few of the interesting stuff I missed because of that, a spitfire engine which has never run and has been perfectly kept. Except for the fact that it is 50 or 60 years old, it is brand new.. and an S-57 chopper or something, anyway, what I did get were these:
cheeta:'s






Mirage 3's. (DZ and RZ mixed a round a bit..)










Mirage F-1






transal


canberra




a fenneck


on of the impala's


A buc which was almost imposible to het a good shot of...


and my favorite, the shakleton




text on an F-86 standing next to the buc


Just gotta love that language... :shades

stil got this C-46 (If I recall corectly..)


and this lockheed loadmaster..


Also nice were 2 C-212, 3 skyvans, 2 A-109's and one Oryx standing in the hangars and on the active ramp.

C-212 8020 and 8021 can be seen in the picture

That's about it for as far as it went for the planes in South Africa, the biggest amount of time was spent in gamevehycles, watching and being watched by some small creatures....


Perhaps it's needless to say that the first thing I did when I got home was find out when I could go back...

I hope these are of interest, comments are of course welcome.



Martin

[Key]

Great stuff Martin, and an awesome one to end with!
Few corrections on the types: what you call Fennec I know as a Super Frelon (not sure of the SAAF designation though), where you say C-46 is a DC-4/C-54, and that Lockheed is a Lodestar as revealed by the sign.
I like 'm a lot!

Erik

[Richard from Rotterdam]

Nice pics! The B707 is a recent addition, arriving last November. It was good to see Swartkop active again, seems to have been for the last 3 years already. Last time I was there it was about to close as an operational base. 17sq is based there nowadays with the Oryx and A109E LUH helicopters. But it seems the Ce208s of 41sq are also based there. I saw the entire fleet.

Some comments about your pics:

the big helo is actually a Frelon.
The "C-46" is actually a C-54 / DC-4.

Some pics of the storage/dump area. I did not check any numbers here as some of the locals warned for nests of Pofadder snakes....


The type of this aircraft I can't recall. I think it was an Australian design. The Vampire is in a very sorry state.


The Impala covered by a net looks as to have crashed some years ago. Around the storage area many Lodestar/Ventura frames can be found.


Two Sikorsky S55s tucked away nicely.


Under the sunroofs lots of different small aircraft to be found. An old SA Navy Wasp hellicopter, multiple Do-27s, Harvards etc.

[frank kramer]

The type of this aircraft I can't recall. I think it was an Australian design.

The aircraft is a (twin-engined) De Havilland Australia DHA-3 Drover. There also is a mk3A which had an additional 3rd engine in the nose (making it an even more weird-looking plane...)

Nice pics!

[r.e.hendriks]

Nice shots....

Looks like a very nice museum...

Regards, Rob.

[Flying Flea Builder]

The 'Australian design' is certainly NOT a DHA-3 Drover (which was in fact a 3-engined tail-wheel version of the DH-104 Dove) , but a 'customised' A-26 Invader, more precisely an On Mark Marksman. Registration of this very rare vehicle is ZS-CVD. Good to see it preserved !

See:

http://www.airlinefan.com/airline-photo ... er/ZS-CVD/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Richard from Rotterdam]

Ah, that figures. I already thought it was familiar in some way. And it explains the wings with tiptanks that you can see in the picture of the S-55s. They had the registration ZS-CVD on them.

Thanks a lot!

[sfeyenoord1]

Stunning shots! The planes are pretty good maintained. Good quality shots, and a lovely ending!

[biesenbeek]

Hiya all,

nice pics indeed !!

Has anyone done enough research to make a comprehensive list of the aircraft in storage ?

Best regards,
Rene

[mart]

Tanks for the comments.
It really is a nice museum, and indeed, all aircraft seem in very good condition.
Thanks for the corrections on the types, one get's mixed up doing different things at the same time


BTW, if you look to the left of the grey-green Mirage 3RZ you can see a weasel.

[Nick1971]

Its definitely worth visiting it... its close to the Voortrekker monument. i ve been @the museum in 2001 when the 707 wasn't there. Its quite weird to pass the security as the museum is on an active airforce base (@least at June 2001). But after passing the guard, no one ever stopped me from walking around. i went to the museum, saw those great planes stored both in- and outside. Then discovered that in the hangar further away some Ju-52's as well as DC-3 and DC-4 were inside. Did u see them??? Coz it would be quite a pity to have missed these great looking planes!!! Too bad, i didnt have a dslr that time, if i would visit South-Africa, i definitely will visit this museum again!!! Btw.... i took pics, should start a search for the slides.

[frank kramer]

The 'Australian design' is certainly NOT a DHA-3 Drover, but a 'customised' A-26 Invader, more precisely an On Mark Marksman. Registration of this very rare vehicle is ZS-CVD. Good to see it preserved !

Tsss.. and I thought a Drover was a rare bird already... Thanks for correcting me! Very rare bird indeed! Good to see it still exists, too bad "preserved" has not (yet) been fully implemented...

[Richard from Rotterdam]

Its definitely worth visiting it... its close to the Voortrekker monument. i ve been @the museum in 2001 when the 707 wasn't there. Its quite weird to pass the security as the museum is on an active airforce base (@least at June 2001). But after passing the guard, no one ever stopped me from walking around. i went to the museum, saw those great planes stored both in- and outside. Then discovered that in the hangar further away some Ju-52's as well as DC-3 and DC-4 were inside. Did u see them??? Coz it would be quite a pity to have missed these great looking planes!!! Too bad, i didnt have a dslr that time, if i would visit South-Africa, i definitely will visit this museum again!!! Btw.... i took pics, should start a search for the slides.

Swartkop is once again an operational airfield. No sign of the SA Airways Historical Flight though. Have seen them on a couple of previous occasions. I think they have moved to Rand Airport, to the SAA Museum over there. Unfortunately it did not fit in our schedule to visit Rand as well. That should be more than worthwhile. Supposedly there is a preserved 747 as well.

Saw the airfield while on approach to JNB, but could not make out all the different shapes parked over there.