Hensoldt South Africa’s Argos-15 Gimbal Now an Option on the Do228 NXT
Hensoldt South Africa’s new Argos-15 electro-optical gimbal is now a configurable option on General Atomics AeroTec Systems’ Do228 NXT, pairing a South African-made sensor with a rebooted German turboprop that already serves dozens of African operators.
Photo: A General Atomics AeroTec Systems Do-228 NXT on static display at the ILA Berlin Air Show. Credit: Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
General Atomics AeroTec Systems (GA-ATS) confirmed that its Do228 NXT twin turboprop can now be fitted with Hensoldt South Africa’s Argos-15 electro-optical/infrared gimbal as an optional mission-system package, defenceWeb reported. The pairing gives GA-ATS a locally manufactured, export-controlled-friendly sensor option for African and wider Global South customers building intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and border-security fleets around the aircraft.
What the Argos-15 adds
The Argos-15 is Hensoldt South Africa’s successor to the Argos-II, which GA-ATS describes as “operationally proven” after years in maritime and overland surveillance roles. Mounted ahead of the Do228’s retractable main landing gear, the gimbal gives the camera operator a clear 360-degree field of view. Hensoldt has packaged it as a single line-replaceable unit with a smaller footprint than its predecessor, built around a next-generation smart payload: multi-spectral sensors with onboard AI-based object detection, classification and tracking, plus optional long-range cameras, a laser pointer, an illuminator, a rangefinder and a designator. Hensoldt South Africa, which employs close to 800 people and operates as a wholly South African arm of the German Hensoldt group, has been pushing the Argos-15 and its related KENIS thermal sensor hard at this year’s trade shows; it also closed a 200-unit KENIS order with Estonia’s HEVI Optronics at AAD 2026 in September, which DefenceMena covered at the time.
The Do228 NXT: an old African workhorse, rebuilt
The original Dornier Do228 was built from 1981 to 1998, and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited continued licensed production in India well beyond that. GA-ATS acquired the type’s rights from RUAG in 2021 and relaunched it as the Do228 NXT, which made its first flight on 2 May 2026 and was formally rolled out at Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, on 8 June. The modernised aircraft keeps the type’s defining strength — short take-off and landing performance from grass or unpaved strips — while updating it with twin Honeywell TPE331-10 turboprops rated at 579 kW each, a maximum cruise speed near 444 km/h, patrol speeds between 78 and 260 knots, roughly eight hours of patrol endurance and a maximum useful load of 2,700 kg across a 16.97-metre wingspan. GA-ATS signed its first Do228 NXT sale with an undisclosed humanitarian organisation in June, with delivery expected in early 2027, and the company’s head of sales, Benjamin Schuhmann, has said GA-ATS is also exploring signals-intelligence, counter-UAS and armed variants of the aircraft.
That matters on the continent because the Do228 family never really left African service even as newer types arrived. GA-ATS puts the number of countries that have operated the Do228 at around 20, with more than 30 operators and roughly 145 aircraft still flying worldwide — a large share of them in Africa, where the type has long filled transport, medevac, maritime-patrol and light surveillance roles for air forces and coast guards that cannot justify a dedicated ISR platform. Cabo Verde’s coast guard is among the African Do228 operators, flying the type alongside EU-funded capability upgrades DefenceMena has covered separately. A re-engineered NXT with a plug-in African-made sensor gives those same operators a path to modernise an aircraft type their maintenance crews and pilots already know, rather than requalifying onto something entirely new.
Why it matters for Africa
For African air forces and coast guards running tight procurement budgets, the Argos-15/Do228 NXT pairing is less about any single sale and more about what it signals: a South African-built sensor, developed and export-controlled under South African rather than US or Israeli rules, is now being marketed as a drop-in option on one of the most widely flown light transport-and-surveillance aircraft on the continent. That combination could appeal to states wary of the end-user restrictions attached to American or European EO/IR systems, and it extends Hensoldt South Africa’s push — after its AAD 2026 showing and the Estonian KENIS order — to position itself as a credible African alternative supplier in a sensor market otherwise dominated by Israeli, American and Chinese firms. No Argos-15 customer or Do228 NXT military order has been announced yet, so the near-term test will be whether African governments already operating the Do228 actually convert interest into contracts once GA-ATS works through its first humanitarian delivery in early 2027.
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