Thales UK to equip S. Africa's Gripen with tactical reconnaissance

Thales UK has been selected by the South African Air Force to equip its new Gripen combat aircraft fleet with a tactical reconnaissance capability. The company's optronics arm here says it is already under contract to start deliveries in the third quarter of next year. The Digital Joint Reconnaissance Pod used by Britain's Royal Air Force and others beat out a modified version of the Rafael Litening targeting pod to secure the deal. The British-built pod will give the South Africans a wide-area reconnaissance capability in a pod operating with electro-optical and infrared sensors, said Geraint Lloyd, the Thales Optronics sales director. Thales is the incumbent supplier to the South Africans, having supplied the Air Force's Cheetah fighters with the Vicon 18 wet film pod. The new pod is already cleared to be carried by five aircraft types, including the BAE Systems Hawk jet trainer flown by South Africa. Lloyd said the pod will fly for the first time on the Gripen by the middle of next year, with the first pod handed over in the third quarter of 2010.