Atlas Aircraft Corporation

The Atlas Aircraft Corporation (also known as Atlas Aviation) was a South African aircraft manufacturer. It was a division of the South African government-owned defence conglomerate Armaments Corporation of South Africa (commonly known as Armscor).

It was founded during 1965 to locally produce aircraft for the South African Air Force (SAAF); the company's creation was motivated by growing international pressure on South Africa, due to the government's racially discriminatory policies known as Apartheid, which led to an international arms embargo being enacted under United Nations Security Council Resolution 418. Finding it near-impossible to import military equipment, including aircraft, Atlas locally manufactured various aircraft and associated components for the nation. It license-produced various foreign-sourced designs, such as the Impala (an Italian ground attack fighter), the Oryx (a derivative of the French Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma medium helicopter), and the Cheetah (an extensively modified model of the French Dassault Mirage III fighter).