The Paramount Group, a privately owned defence and aerospace company, has produced and sold the first military aircraft made in South Africa since the 1980s.
The company said it has won orders for the Mwari, a reconnaissance and precision-strike aircraft, and the first delivery will take place this week after an 11-year development period.
Paramount Group further said aircraft will be supplied to two air forces, saying it can’t yet disclose their identity.
The military aircraft is named Mwari, a word in Zimbabwe’s Shona language that means “the all-knowing, all-seeing deity.”
The company said it is aiming to sell the Mwari across the world where it can be used for counter-insurgency purposes as well as for other applications including maritime surveillance and anti-poaching missions.
The two-pilot aircraft can carry as much as a ton of precision-guided arms and with a lighter load has a range of about 960 kilometres (596 miles).
The wari has an interchangeable pod that allows reconnaissance and other equipment to be swapped out within two hours so that the aircraft can be used for different purposes. | Bloomberg via NewZimbabwe.com