The South African Air Force has these marvellous entities called volunteer squadrons. The units are made up of civilian volunteer pilots who use their OWN aircraft on scheduled transport tasks for the SAAF.

Perhaps it’s time for the cops and the air force to work a little more closely together so that we don’t have any more gross embarassments as reported by my colleague Abdul Milazi. (I mean look at the interior of the Sovereign – it looks like a flying chunk of Dubai.)

Volunteer squadrons have been around for decades and the system works. The aircraft are maintained and flown by their owners and all the SAAF has to do is effectively charter the aircraft at a “wet” rate.

Everybody wins: army and air force “brass” get transported in relatively luxurious fashion (certainly better than flying on a no-frills airline), the air force does not have to maintain a large and expensive fleet of VIP aircraft and the pilots – who are are effectively SAAF Reservists with commercial pilot’s licences – earn flying hours, and a little bit of pay.

There are fewer volunteer squadrons around in 2009 than there were 20 years ago as the SAAF continues to receive breadcrumbs instead of a budget, but the beauty of this system is that it could so easily be reactivated.

Or is that too easy?

Picture: Cessna Citation Sovereign/Photo: Cessna

Related posts:

1. Back when South Africa had jet fighters …
2. London’s Gatwick airport sold. A lesson for South Africa
3. Why volcanoes are really bad for jet engines
4. Rail tourism: South Africa’s slow-motion train wreck
5. SA Airlink vindicated as Acsa takes the blame for the accident in George