Tavor rifle-wielding ground troops of the Nigerian Air Force board a G222 plane enroute Niamey
NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA
4 June, 2013
The Nigerian Air Force on Tuesday in Abuja signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 14 Nigerian universities and five research institutes on capacity building.
Some of the universities are University of Benin, University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, Covenant University, Ota; Federal University of Technology, Minna; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Yaba College of Technology.
The research institutes are the National
Agency for Science and Engineering
Infrastructure, National Space
Development Research Agency and the
Defence Industries Corporation.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, the
Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh,
said that the MoU was in line with his
vision which is ‘‘to transform NAF into a
self-reliant and highly professional
fighting force’’. Badeh said that the transformation was through the application of innovative technology. He said that there were many PhD holders in the Air Force “and rather than leaving them to be writing papers in the
office, there is need to engage them in
research and development projects.’’
According to him, the military is the
driver of the aviation sector all over the
world and the Nigerian Air Force will not
be an exception. “As a nation, we should be able to start small because we cannot continue to depend on foreign companies for aircraft spare parts, as we have to look inward.
“This collaboration is to see what we can get from the academics, things that we need but do not have . We can put heads together and do something for the country. “No one nation builds an aircraft, what is important is where you assemble it after getting the spare parts so we want to see if we can do our own here.’’
On his part, AVM Sadiq Abubakar, the
Chief of Standard and Evaluation of NAF,
said the Air Force was doing so much in
the area of research and development. Abubakar said that with the signing of
the MoU, he believed that the Air Force
could do more as they had the capacity to do what was required to move the
service forward.
On his part, Air Commodore Isaac Odun-
Ayo, the Director, Research and
Development of NAF, said that the plan
for the collaboration started since
November, 2012. Odun-Ayo said the bedrock of any technological advancement was research and development, which entailed conducting investigations for producing new products and ideas.
“The NAF desires to leverage on the pool of competencies and facilities available in your institutions, hence this
partnership through MoU’’, he said.
Responding on behalf of the institutions,
the Vice-Chancellor of the Lagos State
University (LASU), Prof. John Obafunwa,
commended NAF for coming up with the
innovative idea. Obafunwa said that the universities saw the partnership as a rare opportunity to move the Air Force, universities and the nation forward. He said that the Air Force had a lot of
academically-inclined officers and that
the universities would work with them
to ensure that the best was brought out
from the partnership.
Beegeagle's Blog 
This is an excellent IDEA
1) Any research MUST BE LEGALLY BINDING meaning the participants cannot taking the dividends of such research and sell it to a foreign company/ or Private manufacturer.
2) All researchers need to have CATEGORIES OF CLEARANCE yes some of them maybe as young as 22 but security is key.
3) This is inevitable as an incentive some of these RESEARCHERS upon graduation from the said universities since they will be the cream of the crop of the University should be guaranteed employment with the M.O.D. upon graduation. WHAT THE GOVT DOES NOT WANT TO DO IS TRAIN these young guys at the initial stage for another country.
4) This has to be an ongoing process with the attitude that ” if we encourage Nigerians they can move mountains”
5) Approximately three years ago a self EDUCATED Nigerian in his spare time built a helicopter from scratch creative people who have proved by their work that they have the capacity to help the N.A.F must be encouraged.
6) The end game of this research is four crucial points:
A) A Nigerian made SURFACE -TO- AIR Missile
B) A Nigerian made heavily armed Helicopter gunship
C) A Nigerian made Jet FIGHTER
D) A ” modern” Nigerian made communication system I say modern because the first recorded communication system is credited to the Biafrans during the Civil war.
This is definitely a welcome development. I hope we are able to sustain the tempo, if not it will only end up where similar life changing projects end up in Nigeria.
I have been waiting for such collaborations, extremely glad my school is part of the MoU. I sincerely hope the collaboration would include research in Cyber security, FUTMinna is currently the only Nigerian Uni running a cyber security programme and I believe it should b encouraged, as well as other institutions.
oga agee
EXCELLENT
Thank you for including that idea the war between nations on CYBER security has already begun ( especially between the U.S and IRAN and the U.S. and China . As Nigeria becomes more computerised it becomes more vulnerable.
CHEERY NEWS
NTA NEWS this evening showed the NAF conducting demonstration flights of the Aerostar UAV at Kaduna today. The CAS also commissioned an innovation centre at the AFIT.
More details as they become handy
OGA BEEGEAGLE
We need more details on the Aerostar UAV. i know you did a piece on it way…………. back I beg refresh our memory.
Great ideas all around.
At a time like this, where nigeria’s economy is not at it’s best, our armed forces should poach the best and the brightest young men and women from all the land.
NAF especially should scout for the best available talent to meet all their flying and technical needs.
Of course step #2 would be to re equip the force, so that these bright young officers would not be bored with nothing to do.
With a growing technical base, NAF and the other services can bypass the inertia of the civilian controlled ministry of defence, and make cheap acquisitions within it’s existing budget.
NAF would have the technical base to repair and refurbish these aircrafts. While we all await a more enlightened civilian administration, that understands that armies, airforces and navies are capital intensive investments that any serious country must make.
The russian used fleet of SU-27s,SU-30ks, SU-25s, MI-24s presents an opportunity for nigeria
But honestly i think the M.O.D should be reconfigured, the Office of Procurement must and MUST have only Military Personnel to plug leaks and inefficiencies.
The NAF i say kudos to you all! The Airforce has a lot of surprise coming, we on this blog know this,
@Jimmy please if u can name this guy that built a helicopter maybe we can point them in a right directiion.
AFIT will certainly be co-ordinating the Research Teams
Way to go.
Oga beeg, abeg details on the drone. We are still waiting oh.
Aerostar tactical unmanned air vehichle.(TUAV).used mostly for intelligence gathering and surveillance. Developed by aeronautics defense systems ltd.and israeli intelligence.( this had made me believe that the uav’s oga beeg talked abt the other time. Saying they were demonstrated by the israeli’s for the nigerian navy from the deck of a chopper,was actually an Aerostar TUAV and not an elbit system. Striking out our dreams of aquiring any version of the hermes soon). A close look at the aerostar would remind you of our amebo systems lying unused in a bunker somwhere. The system have a good operational history from angola to india(still being used by the us navy.)
dont know if the capabilities comes according to the variants but the aerostars are said to be capable of:
-target aquisition,
-Artillery fire adjustment,
-target designation,
-battle field and border control.
technicalities of the ATUAV
service ceiling.
18,000ft
operational endurance
12hrs
loiter speed
55knots
dash speed
110 knots
wingspan
8.5m
lenght
4.5m
height
1.3m.
Max pyld
10 lb
thank you very my oga generals
I beg to disagree,the two uav’s Amebo & Aerostar fill two requirements in the NAF,Aerostar: range 200km,endurance 12 hours,classification Medium Altitude Long Endurance uav (MALE), Amebo: range 50km,endurance 3hours,classification mini-uav.AMEBO will not be abandoned.
It was an AeroStar UAV for sure, Oga Henry. I watched it from takeoff run to lift off, so we can tell what it was.
As soon as details reach me, I shall splash them on these pages.
Oga Beegs, you never cease to amaze me. Thanks for this info
The next step would be to share some of that security vote with a R&D trust fund then we send some of our old hardware from the bulldogs, bo 105 and lynx through the albatrosses and fishbeds to the jags to use as ‘speciment’ for practicals and get some sought of coop with china, india and all our other tech advanced partners and friend then give it a few years and u’ll surprised by what Nigerians will produce. Remember our sat program in partnership with UK! If the iranians can do it, why not us? Finally, we shouldn’t enter into any deal if the off set deal doesn’t include some sought of tech transfer. Army, Navy and SSS, etc I hope u’ll get on board and follow the airforce lead. Great initiative.
NAF should also take a close look at the Israeli EL/M-2083 aerostat radar system,with a price tag of $20million and range 500km about 4 should be able to give sufficient radar coverage.