The Royal Thai Air Pressure has confirmed {that a} resolution has been finalised to obtain Swedish Gripen E/F fighters, that are anticipated to complement older Gripen C/D and F-5TH fighters within the service’s fleet. Though no contract has but been signed, the framework for negotiations with the producer Saab, and with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration have been set. Saab additionally requires permission from the USA to export the fighters, as a result of their use of American F414 engines and different key subsystems. Commenting on the choice to obtain the plane, Saab President and CEO Micael Johansson said: “We welcome the Royal Thai Air Pressure’s number of Gripen E/F as its future fighter and look ahead to the following steps on this procurement course of. Gripen E/F is the most effective answer to offer Thailand with impartial airpower for the long run which can contribute considerably to the nation’s security and safety.” The agency is proposing a long-term offset package deal which it asserts can strengthen Thailand’s nationwide safety and strategic autonomy, whereas supporting job creation and funding throughout a number of sectors of Thai business. Procurement underneath such a package deal is predicted to be significantly extra pricey, nevertheless.
Stories {that a} resolution had been made to obtain the Gripen E/F first emerged in August 2024, however weren’t beforehand confirmed. Thai orders for the fighter would offer a lot wanted reduction for Saab and the Swedish aviation sector extra broadly, which have struggled to realize shoppers for the Gripen. The fighter has constantly misplaced all tenders it had participated in over the previous decade, together with a number of losses to the F-35 throughout Europe and in Canada. Johansson beforehand knowledgeable reporters of his “excessive frustration” on the years lengthy lack of export successes for the Gripen, stating that the fighter was not assembly export expectations, blaming political elements, and asserting that the plane’s efficiency attributes had been to not blame.
The Gripen has seen no export contracts signed for its procurement since a $5.44 billion contract for 36 fighters was signed in 2014 to equip the Brazilian Air Pressure. The shortage of orders has pressured the Swedish Defence Ministry to make bigger procurements than deliberate to forestall the closure of manufacturing strains. Regardless of vast ranging efficiency limitations, a significant attraction of the Gripen is that it has by far the bottom lifetime prices of any fighter within the Western world. That is largely as a result of the truth that it falls underneath a ‘very mild’ weight vary under that of standard mild fighters such because the F-16 and J-10C, and corresponding to the Chinese language JF-17 or the South Korean FA-50. The fighter’s significantly small dimension nonetheless limits it to carrying a really small radar and low weapons payload, that are main shortcomings of the design.
A key issue influencing the Royal Thai Air Pressure’s resolution to pick out the Gripen E/F is considered the plane’s excessive ranges of commonality with the service’s present fleet of 11 Gripen C/D fighters, which had been ordered 2008 and 2010 in two batches. The Gripen E/F’s new American F414 engines are intently associated to the F404 engines powering older Gripen variants, and have important commonality of their upkeep necessities. Other than the brand new engine, the brand new Gripen variant’s main enhancements are in its avionics suite, which have been introduced as much as a fifth technology degree. They embrace the Raven ES-05 lively electronically scanned array radar, which represents a significant enchancment over the Gripen C/D’s out of date PS-05A mechanically scanned array radar. The fighter can be now suitable with the Meteor lengthy vary air-to-air missile, which has the potential to revolutionise its air-to-air efficiency ought to orders be positioned and export approval be granted. The Meteor has a comparable efficiency the Chinese language PL-15, which has typically outfitted fighters such because the J-10C deployed to Thailand for workouts. In contrast to the Navy and Army, the Royal Thai Air Pressure is the one service within the nation’s armed forces which has not taken steps to cut back its reliance on Western gear and improve procurements from China. Political strain on the nation has extensively been highlighted by native analysts as a number one issue influencing this, regardless of the rising recognition of Chinese language fighters elsewhere on this planet.
