Lionel Friedberg - The Flying Springbok: A History of South African Airways Since Its Inception to the Post-Apartheid Era

An absorbing account of a major international airline told against a background of pivotal historic, political, social and technical events. A fascinating and enlightening read.

Charles Kohlhase, Mission Design Manager, NASAs VOYAGER Spacecraft Interplanetary Mission, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) California.

This is a great story that includes world history wrapped in the aluminum skin of aviation. It contains extraordinary detail that burrows through wars, racism, determination, success, death and rebirth as South African Airways seeks new life after 2020. It is a wonderful read that should be mandatory for students of history and both civil and military service schools.

Brigadier General Bob Jordan, (retired), US Army

This is a fascinating tale that covers not only the development of air travel between Southern Africa and the rest of the world but also the too little-known evolution of the great, giant continent of Africa. The detailed aspects on aircraft and the amazingly courageous characters who flew the planes is spellbinding. This is a wonderful window on world history and is not to be missed.

Captain Stuart Bird-Wilson, (retired), British Special Air Services

This is a detailed and marvelous history of flying, commercial aviation and South Africa in general. It brought back many memories of my own career. The author has done an outstanding job of research and I highly recommend it to aviation aficionados, historians and general readers everywhere.

Lieutenant Colonel Ed Reynolds, (retired), US Air Force

Also by Lionel Friedberg

The Flying Springbok

A history of South African Airways from its inception until the post-apartheid era

A history of South African Airways from its inception until the post-apartheid era

Lionel Friedberg

Winchester, UK

Washington, USA

First published by Chronos Books, 2021

Chronos Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., No. 3 East St., Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9EE, UK

www.johnhuntpublishing.com

www.chronosbooks.com

For distributor details and how to order please visit the Ordering section on our website.

Text copyright: Lionel Friedberg 2020

ISBN: 978 1 78904 646 5

978 1 78904 647 2 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020940133

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Lionel Friedberg as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

UK: Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Printed in North America by CPI GPS partners

We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

Dedicated to the memory of my beloved parents

Ann and Simon Friedberg

They taught me to look up in wonder and in awe

The springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) is a medium size antelope. It is the national animal of the Republic of South Africa. For more than six decades, a stylized rendering of the animal with sprouted wings was the symbol of the countrys national carrier, South African Airways (SAA).

Pioneering air services throughout Africa and eventually flying to destinations on six continents, SAA became synonymous with expedient, safe and efficient air travel. Emboldened by a pioneering spirit, the airline could boast of many firsts. It also overcame what once seemed like insurmountable odds that threatened its very existence. Though colorful and fascinating, it is nevertheless a story not without controversy. Many saw SAA as the apartheid airline, a state-owned agency of the white-controlled government that ruthlessly divided the countrys racial groups.

The flying springbok logo emblazoned the tails of aircraft at many of the worlds major international airports. This was crucial to South Africas ruling National Partys imperative to maintain a presence throughout the globe in the face of ever-increasing boycotts, criticism and isolationism due to its racist policies. Routes to some destinations did not even have to show a profit just so long as SAA aircraft could be seen pulling up at terminals abroad and proudly displaying the South African flag.

Today SAA has long-since shed its original logo. It was born anew in 1996 with a livery evocative of the post-apartheid era. But the years of the Flying Springbok were the richest, most progressive and internationally respected in the airlines 86-year history. This is an account of the era leading up to the rebranding and reincarnation of the airline, six years after Nelson Mandela was finally released from political imprisonment and two years after the African National Congress took over the reins of power when democracy and the end of racism finally came to South Africa.

Four separate territories once occupied the area that now constitute the Republic of South Africa. One of them was the British colony of Natal. It buffered the eastern coastline with the Indian Ocean and was favored by white immigrant settlers as a new home under the African sun. Among them was William John Houshold. With his wife Mary and their five children, they sailed from England and settled on a farm in the Karkloof area near the hamlet of Howick in 1864. But it was their youngest son John Goodman who really concerns us. He was to leave an indelible mark on the history of aviation in Africa and it is with him that our story begins.

For years farmers and innkeepers around Karkloof and the bustling town of Pietermaritzburg talked of the young John Goodman Houshold. It was rumored that he dabbled in the Godless vice of attempting to fly. Tales described how, as early as 1871, Houshold nurtured a dream to soar like the birds that he so admired as they careened above the family farm. Coveting their ability, he is said to have obtained a large, firm dried-out hide from a slaughtered bull and attached a long leather thong to it. Climbing up a tree with it, he perched on a branch, maneuvered himself onto the flat hide, tossed the thong down to a handful of Zulu laborers waiting below, held on to either side of the hide and ordered the men to grab the thong and run. He hoped the hide would become a glider but his makeshift creation did not become airborne. The twenty-nine-year-old Houshold plummeted to the ground in a cloud of dust. Not to be outdone, over a period of weeks he carefully studied birds in flight, paying special attention to the ratio of their wingspan to their bodies. To understand something of aerodynamics, he shot a vulture, weighed it and measured the length of its wings. From this, he figured out the design for his next glider and showed it to a friend of the family, Bishop John Colenso in Pietermaritzburg. Colenso was a controversial figure in the Anglican Church who had landed himself in trouble for his outspoken liberal views on religion and race but he had excelled at mathematics during his years at Cambridge University. He fully supported Housholds flying ambitions. Examining the young mans drawings, he pronounced them promising and encouraged him to construct his glider.