page_title: Avro Shackleton
section_title: South African Air Force
hierarchical_section_title: Avro Shackleton / Operational history / South African Air Force
caption_attribution_description: SAAF Shackleton O 1717
context_page_description: The Avro Shackleton is a British long-range maritime patrol aircraft which was used by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force. It was developed by Avro from the Avro Lincoln bomber, which itself had been a development of the famous wartime Avro Lancaster bomber.
  The Shackleton was developed during the late 1940s as part of Britain's military response to the rapid expansion of the Soviet Navy, in particular its submarine force. Produced as the primary type equipping RAF Coastal Command, the Type 696, as it was initially designated, incorporated major elements of the Lincoln, as well as the Avro Tudor passenger aircraft, and was furnished with extensive electronics suites in order to perform the anti-submarine warfare mission along with a much-improved crew environment to accommodate the long mission times involved in patrol work. Being known for a short time as the Lincoln ASR.3, it was decided that the Type 696 would be named Shackleton in service, after the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
  It entered operational service with the RAF in April 1951.
context_section_description: During the Second World War, the importance of securing the sea routes around the Cape of Good Hope had been made apparent, with over a hundred vessels being sunk in South African waters by enemy vessels between 1942 and 1945. In the postwar situation, the South African Air Force sought a large and capable platform to perform the maritime patrol role. After evaluating four RAF MR 2s in 1953, an order was placed for eight Shackletons as a replacement for the SAAF's aging Short Sunderland maritime patrol aircraft. Modifications were required to fulfill South African conditions and requirements, such as the ability to operate over the Indian Ocean, the resulting aircraft was designated the Shackleton MR 3.
  On 18 August 1957, the first two Shackletons were delivered to D.F. Malan Airport, Cape Town. Two more followed on 13 October 1957 and the remainder arrived in February 1958. Delivered to the same basic standard as the RAF's MR 3s, they were assigned single letter codes between "J" and "Q" and operated by 35 Squadron SAAF. The type typically patrolled the sea lanes around the Cape of Good Hope, often monitoring Soviet vessels traversing between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. The Shackleton was briefly used in low-level overland patrols along the Southern Rhodesian border, but these duties ended following concerns of the disturbance of wildlife.
  Often, the Shackleton would be called in to perform search and rescue operations in the treacherous waters around the Cape. In March 1971, Shackletons successfully intervened in the SS Wafra oil spill, deliberately sinking the stricken oil tanker with depth charges in order to prevent an ecological disaster. The only operational loss incurred was 1718 K, which crashed into the Wemmershoek mountains at night time on 8 August 1963 with the loss of all thirteen crew.
  Due to an embargo imposed by the United Nations over South Africa's policy of apartheid, acquiring components for the Shackleton fleet became increasingly difficult and thus the aircraft's serviceability suffered. The fleet had been modified to Phase III standards prior to the implementation of the arms embargo, albeit without the auxiliary Viper engine. Two of the aircraft were re-sparred, 1716 J in the United Kingdom and 1717 O in South Africa by the SAAF, but the lack of engine spares and tyres, together with airframe fatigue, took a gradual toll. By November 1984, the fatigue lives of all but the two re-sparred aircraft had expired and the fleet was retired into storage. Although the joke has been applied to several aircraft, the Shackleton was often described as "a hundred thousand rivets flying in close formation."
caption: SAAF 1717 0 on patrol, October 1982
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