As far as the Rooivalk goes, when I was working as a journalist in South Africa, there were mumblings about the software integration on the machine. Apparently some of it wasnt working and this was proving to be a real problem. Also it's very heavy, dry weight is heavier than the Apache.

The software problems are not suprising... as the Rooivalk's targetting system is still something of a mystery, it appeared at a time when south Africa was still under international arms sanctions. But it's thought to be a hybrid of Israeli and French technology, possibly using commercial police IR tracking systems for example.

They still don't talk about.

Having said all this, I really like the Rooivalk, very impressive on air displays.

I'm suprised countries like India, Cuba and so havnt brought it. China was considering it at one stage as well.