Atlas Cheetah

what is it?

The Atlas Cheetah is a South African fighter aircraft produced by the aviation company Atlas Aircraft Corporation (later Denel Aeronautics). It was primarily developed and operated by the South African Air Force (SAAF). The Cheetah was developed amid the Border War of the 1980s as a major upgrade of the French-built Dassault Mirage III fleet operated by the SAAF. The programme integrated technology from the Israeli-built IAI Kfir, which had been derived from the Mirage 5/IAI Nesher.

🔎How to recognise it: 1 jet engine · 8.2 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 2,350 km/htop speed
• range 1,300 kmwithout refuelling
• size 13.7 tmax take-off weight
• built 38made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 40 years ago, in 1986.
• 🏎️Top speed is 18.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 💥Faster than sound: up to Mach 1.9 (sea-level speed of sound ≈ 1,235 km/h).
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 2 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 1,300 km: 7× Amsterdam to Brussels.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.9× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1986-07

introduced

1986

status

still flying

number built

38

role

fighter aircraft

origin

🇿🇦 South Africa

makers

Atlas

engines

1× Snecma Atar 9K50C-11

length

15.6 m

wingspan

8.2 m

height

4.5 m

max take-off weight

13.7 t

top speed

2,350 km/h

range

1,300 km

ceiling

17,000 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.