Air Force Base Ysterplaat is an airbase of the South African Air Force. It is located in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

suburb Ysterplaat, on the southwestern coast of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. The name ''Ysterplaat'' is

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

from the Dutch "Ijzerplaats", meaning "Iron Place" or "Place of Iron" in English. The base's motto is ''Fortiter In Re'' (Resolute in Action).

Units hosted

22 Squadron SAAF 22 Squadron is a squadron of the South African Air Force. It is currently a maritime helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to ...

- Helicopter squadron *

35 Squadron SAAF 35 Squadron SAAF is a squadron of the South African Air Force. It is a maritime patrol and transport squadron. History The squadron was formed on 15 February 1945Jefford 2001, p. 82. when 262 Squadron Royal Air Force, an anti-submarine squadron ...

- Transport/Maritime patrol squadron * 110 Squadron SAAF - Light transport (reserve) * 505 Squadron - Security services * 80 Air Navigation School SAAF * 2 Air Support Unit detached - Maintenance support

History

The site of AFB Ysterplaat was originally used as a civilian airfield, known as Maitland Aerodrome, from as early as 1929. African Air Transport (AAT) opened at Maitland in 1938, and was involved in training pilots for the Union Air Training Group's pupil pilot training scheme. With the coming of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the land the aerodrome sat on was donated to aid the war effort by

Sir David Graaff, 1st Baronet Sir David Pieter de Villiers Graaff, 1st Baronet (30 March 1859 – 13 April 1931) was a South African cold storage magnate and politician. Graaff revolutionized the cold storage industry in Africa. He founded the Imperial Cold Storage and Supp ...

on condition his estate would be consulted should it ever be used for non-military purposes. After which AAT moved to Tempe and Maitland was taken over by the SAAF. On 24 October 1941 Air Force Station Brooklyn, as it was then known, opened as an SAAF unit. 3 and 9 Air Depots were transferred to Brooklyn for the repair and assembly of aircraft. In the first year of its existence, 790 aircraft were assembled at Brooklyn, consisting of 254

Airspeed Oxford The Airspeed AS.10 Oxford is a twin-engine monoplane aircraft developed and manufactured by Airspeed. It saw widespread use for training British Commonwealth aircrews in navigation, radio-operating, bombing and gunnery roles throughout the Seco ...

s, 154

Miles Master The Miles M.9 Master was a British two-seat monoplane advanced trainer designed and built by aviation company Miles Aircraft Ltd. It was inducted in large numbers into both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) during the Second Wor ...

s, 148

Avro Anson The Avro Anson is a British twin-engined, multi-role aircraft built by the aircraft manufacturer Avro. Large numbers of the type served in a variety of roles for the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) a ...

s, 79 Harvards, 78

Fairey Battle The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hi ...

s, 63

Martin Baltimore The Martin 187 Baltimore was a twin-engined light attack bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company in the United States as the A-30. The model was originally ordered by the French in May 1940 as a follow-up to the earlier Martin Maryland, then ...

s, nine

Bristol Beaufort The Bristol Beaufort (manufacturer designation Type 152) is a British twin-engined torpedo bomber designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and developed from experience gained designing and building the earlier Blenheim light bomber. At l ...

s and five de Havilland Dominies. Curtiss Kittyhawks and

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

s were also assembled at a later stage, but by the end of the war, the depots were now disposing of aircraft for scrap or exporting them. In 1946, the first jet aircraft to reach South Africa, a Gloster Meteor III, was assembled and flown at Brooklyn. On 1 April 1949, AFS Brooklyn was renamed AFS Ysterplaat. It lies now literally in the heart of

, South Africa's legislative capital. More jets were assembled at Ysterplaat from 1950 in the form of the

de Havilland Vampire The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the Royal Air Force, RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and ...

FB Mk.5s, which were the SAAF's first operational jet fighters. Unit status was upgraded to an Air Force Base (AFB) on 1 February 1968.

Current use

Although the base has long been the centre of the SAAF's maritime patrol activities along the Cape coast, due to increased budgetary restrictions, the base was scheduled to be downgraded to an Air Force Station (AFS Ysterplaat) on 1 April 2003, but as of August 2004, this has not yet happened. The SAAF is considering converting the base into a civilian airport with a military presence, but no decisions have been taken as of yet. However, AFB Ysterplaat restricted airspace helps trainees at local flight training schools based at

Fisantekraal Fisantekraal is a township in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is located northeast of Durbanville and about northeast of central Cape Town. According to the 2011 census it has a population of 12,369 people. There is an airfield ne ...

Morningstar Airfield Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to: Astronomy * Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise ** See also Venus in culture * Morning star, a name for the star Sir ...

in honing their round-trip skills while flying en route the

Cape Peninsula The Cape Peninsula ( af, Kaapse Skiereiland) is a generally mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of ...

, thus creating strong bonds between the base and the diverse flying community of the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

. The Young Falcons wings ceremony is held also at AFB Ysterplaat.

References

External links

AFB Ysterplaat
{{authority control Ysterplaat Ysterplaat Transport in Cape Town