85 Combat Flying School SAAF

85 Combat Flying School is a unit of the South African Air Force. It is currently a jet flight-training and combat operations school. The school also has a wartime reserve role, although it has publicly been stated that the school will not be used operationally unless a very urgent need arises.

  • Motto: Detrimento Sumus (Destruction is our Business)
  • First formed: 1 August 1972 (at AFB Pietersburg)
  • Historic aircraft flown: Mirage IIIEZ/DZ/D2Z, Canadair Sabre Mk.6, Atlas Impala Mk.I/II.
  • Current aircraft flown: BAE Hawk Mk.120
  • Current base: AFB Makhado, Louis Trichardt

The School was recently relocated to AFB Makhado from AFB Hoedspruit into a new purpose built facility with state-of-the-art computer-aided flight training instruments. The school shares this facility with the SAAF Gripen community.

During October 2007 there were several pilots that went solo on the Hawk Mk.120.

The squadron also participated in the annual SANDF force preparation exercises and fired live cannon rounds and dropped live bombs. They also had a successful weapons deployment exercise to AFB Bloemspruit in 2007.

South African Air Force
Active Squadrons
  • 2
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 19
  • 21
  • 22
  • 28
  • 35
  • 41
  • 44
  • 60
Training and Development Units
  • 68 Air School
  • 80 Air Navigation School
  • 85 Combat Flying School
  • 87 Helicopter Flying School
  • Central Flying School
  • Test Flight and Development Centre
  • South African Air Force College
  • SAAF Museum Historic Flight
Territorial Reserve Squadrons
  • 101
  • 102
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 110
  • 111
Disbanded Squadrons
  • 1
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 14
  • 18
  • 20
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 40
  • 42
  • 43
  • 50
  • 103
  • 109
  • 112
  • 114
  • 120
  • 86 Multi-Engine Flying School
  • 88 Maritime Training School
  • 89 Combat Flying School
WW2 Wings of the SAAF
  • 2
  • 3
  • 5
  • 7
Bases
  • AFB Bloemspruit
  • AFB Durban
  • AFB Hoedspruit
  • AFB Langebaanweg
  • AFB Makhado
  • AFB Overberg
  • AFB Swartkop
  • AFB Waterkloof
  • AFB Ysterplaat
  • AFS Port Elizabeth
Related
  • History of the South African Air Force
  • South African Air Force Museum
  • South African Air Force Memorial
  • Military history of South Africa
  • List of current and historical SAAF aircraft
  • List of obsolete weapon systems of the South African Air Force
  • SAAF squadron identification codes
  • Official Website: www.af.mil.za
  • Unofficial Website: www.saairforce.co.za

Famous quotes containing the words combat, flying and/or school:

    “The combat ended for want of combatants.”
    —Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)

    “Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire,
    Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.”
    —A.C. (Algernon Charles)

    “I never went near the Wellesley College chapel in my four years there, but I am still amazed at the amount of Christian charity that school stuck us all with, a kind of glazed politeness in the face of boredom and stupidity. Tolerance, in the worst sense of the word.... How marvelous it would have been to go to a women’s college that encouraged impoliteness, that rewarded aggression, that encouraged argument.”
    —Nora Ephron (b. 1941)