Atlas (Denel) Cheetah

The Denel (formally Atlas) Cheetah came about through a need by the South African Air Force to update / replace its series of aging fighters while its bordering neighbors were receiving updated Soviet Bloc aircraft. Unfortunately for South Africa, a general Western embargo limited the options available and, as such, the decision was made to modify existing SAAF Mirage III's to a new standard. The end result would be what many consider to be the "definitive" evolution of the Mirage III brand in the "Cheetah C" fighter, a match comparative to the McDonnell Douglas / Boeing F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter.

It is widely believed, though never confirmed, that the Atlas company received a tremendous amount of help (up front at least) from IAI of Israel for two distinct reasons - 1) South Africa and Israel enjoyed a particularly chummy relationship during this time and 2) Israel has already intimate knowledge of upgrading French Mirages through their development of the Kfir fighter series. This knowledge helped greatly into bringing the South African Mirage III to a whole new standard, implementing various proven Israeli elements into the existing design such as avionics, computer systems and physical design ideas to the airframe (canards for example).

Though retaining roughly 50 percent of the existing Mirage III airframe, the Cheetah was basically an all-new aircraft. The system would appear in a few variants made distinguishable by the single-seat or twin-seat derivatives. A static inflight refueling probe was also added to the base design modification for increased range, as was the inclusion of additional underfuselage hardpoints (wingtip hardpoints were trialed successfully for the Mirage IIIR2Z which would have become the "Cheetah R" dedicated reconnaissance platform but these never put into production). More powerful engines were also added into the mix.

The resulting design was a most impressive combination of speed and performance. Armament was centered around the multirole theory from the start with standard twin 30mm DEFA cannons and air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions of various types. The definitive Cheetah would become the single seat "Cheetah C" that featured modernized equipment throughout and is widely considered as the ultimate product of the Mirage III family series. The Cheetah is set to be replaced in the South African Air Force beginning with the arrival of the Saab JAS J39 Gripen (detailed elsewhere on this site) next generation fighter, of which an initial batch were ordered in 1999. Expected delivery, as of this writing, is to be sometime in 2007, though Cheetahs themselves will run service through 2012.

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