The AHRLAC is Africa's first home grown FIXED-WING military aircraft. I believe the Rooivalk attack helicopter is the first home grown military aircraft in Africa.

I think that is really neat. Perhaps with it being a turbo prop, it could use bio fuels?

Depends on what you term 'military'. Atlas aviation also developed the ACE (See wikipedia page). A fully composite military trainer. The government chose to buy the PC9 instead of developing this promising aircraft further. There were other experimental aircraft developed by the CSIR.

Looks like a great machine to me.......unimproved fields would be no problem, lots of reliable power...........has to be a winner for smaller countries, or general rugged stuff anywhere.

South Africa also designed and built a plane based on the Mirage called the Cheetah.
It looks reasonably competent for the role.

Looks a lot like a OV-10 -Bronco

"manned alternative to UAVs"
wow, that's a pretty interesting concept. hahahhaha.

The Rooivalk was not an entirely original design. It's based on the Aerospatiale (now Eurocopter) Puma. Obviously more of a new aircraft than the Cheetah, which is basically just a Mirage V with a different name.

Came here to state the same as usmc55, the general shape is reminiscent of the OV-10 at first glance.
And i think a updated version of the OV-10 was being shopped around as a CAS platform these days.

Needs to be optionally manned for maximum versatility in the modern era.
Also unless merely a forest surveillance platform, armour may need to be fairly hefty as it will be attracting the same low level fire that all close support helicopters get.
Should work well guarding rhino's at kruger.