Two Tu-160 Blackjack bombers landed at AFB Waterkloof earlier today. It’s the “White Swan” first visit to the African continent.

On Oct. 23, 2019, two Russian Air Force Tu-160s bombers arrived in South Africa for the type’s first deployment to Africa.

As we were first to report two days ago, the Russian Blackjacks were supposed to touch down at the air base near the country capital Pretoria yesterday; however, the trip from Engels-2 airfield in Russia was postponed because of unknown technical issues.

The route the two Tu-160s flew from Russia has not been unveiled and there are different theories:

Possible Tu-160 routing: Down the east coast of Africa out over the Indian Ocean, then enter SA via KZN where the Hawks will escort them to Waterkloof. They will not route overland Africa. — Dean Wingrin (@deanwingrin) October 23, 2019

Update: The Tu-160s flew over the waters of the Caspian and Arabian seas, as well as over the Indian Ocean.

За 13 часов из России в ЮАР: как прошел исторический перелет «Белых лебедей»:

https://t.co/ISieQbneMn pic.twitter.com/8emhrjUePF — Телеканал “Звезда” (@zvezdanews) October 23, 2019

The two “White Swan” bombers were intercepted and escorted by SAAF Hawk Mk120 jet trainers.

What we called a “standard support package”, an Antonov An-124 Ruslan heavy lift cargo aircraft for support equipment and spares and a retro-looking Ilyushin Il-62 passenger aircraft carrying support, diplomatic and media personnel, arrived in South Africa on Oct. 22.

You can read our analysis on the deployment in this article; here below a selection of images and videos showing today’s landings.

Tu-160 in Waterkloof Pretoria, I was there. First time on African soil – what a moment #RussiaAfricaSummit #RussiaAfrica @EmbassyofRussia pic.twitter.com/Vpw3xXoYWk — Xhosa Man (@MoYousuf20) October 23, 2019

I was just sent this incredible video of one of the Tu-160s landing at AFB Waterkloof, taken from right under the approach path. pic.twitter.com/uwDZhtjBWE — Darren Olivier (@darren_olivier) October 23, 2019

Coming in hot! Russian “White swans” – Tupolev Tu-160M2 – arrive in #SouthAfrica, Waterkloof Air Force Base pic.twitter.com/5yYiUEXgUZ — Russia in RSA 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) October 23, 2019

Russian Federation (AFRF) during their visit in the Republic of South Africa (RSA). The air arsenal of the AFRF such as the Antonov-AN124, the “Black Jack”, TU-160, IL 62 Illussion amongst others landed at SA Air Force Base Waterkloof. #sandf#sandf_19#SAAirForce_19 pic.twitter.com/1zNYNRzprs — SA National Defence Force (@SANDFCorpEvents) October 23, 2019





