The Swedish Air Power acquired its first Gripen E/F ‘4+ technology’ fighter on October 20, with the primary of 60 deliberate plane touchdown on the Skaraborg Wing’s residence basein south-central Sweden. “This can be a massive day that marks the start of a brand new chapter in Swedish aviation historical past,” the Skaraborg’s Wing Commander Mattias Ottis said, including that the unit was “the centre of Swedish fighter plane growth” and was answerable for “paving the way in which for the longer term.” Though the Gripen E/F was beforehand exported to equip the Brazilian Air Power, and started to reach within the nation over 5 years in the past in September 2020, the Swedish Defence Ministry has procured the fighters much more slowly for home use. This contrasts sharply with the approaches taken by the big majority of fighter producers which prioritise their home fleets, with solely Russia within the Nineties and 2000s having equally prioritised its new and most succesful fighters for export resulting from an acute lack of funding.
The Gripen C/D at present relied on by the Swedish Air Power has lengthy confronted considerably obsolescence points, with the plane utilizing mechanically scanned array radars which can be among the many weakest of any fighters constructed within the post-Chilly Battle period, whereas being extremely inclined to jamming. The Gripen E/F addresses a few of the older variant’s main shortcomings, integrating a significantly extra highly effective and environment friendly F414 engine to considerably enhance vary and flight efficiency, whereas partly compensating for an absence of stealth utilizing superior digital warfare programs, and integrating the brand new Raven ES-05 energetic electronically scanned array radar with significantly extra energy and fewer vulnerability to enemy digital warfare. The fighter can be suitable with a variety of recent missile sorts, most notably the Meteor lengthy vary air-to-air missile which is considerably superior to the AIM-120C relied on by older Gripen variants.
Though the Gripen E/F represents a serious enchancment over older variants of the fighter, critical questions concerning the sufficiency of its fight capabilities stay. The ES-05 radar, though representing a serious enchancment, shouldn’t be solely considerably much less superior that innovative new radars such because the F-35’s new AN/APG-85, however can be among the many smallest radars carried by any fighter on this planet, with heavier fighters such because the Russian Su-30SM2 and Chinese language J-16 carry radars over 4 occasions as massive, and in China’s case benefitting from better sophistication. The restricted energy of the radar not solely creates digital warfare vulnerabilities, but in addition limits situational consciousness, forcing the Gripens to depend on supporting plane similar to F-35s or E-7 AEW&Cs to have the ability to have interaction targets at longer ranges.
The Gripen E/F has constantly misplaced each tender by which it has competed in opposition to the F-35, with SAAB President and CEO Micael Johansson in August 2022 lamenting the dearth of Gripen gross sales, blaming political components and stressing his “excessive frustration.” The fighter’s major benefit over different Western fighters is its very gentle weight, far beneath that of even the F-16, and accompanying very low operational prices and upkeep wants, which has allowed operators to keep up availability charges at near 100%. F-35 operators, against this, pay a number of occasions as a lot for sustainment whereas usually struggling to have fighters out there at charges of greater than 55 %. As China, the US, and to a lesser extent Russia all quickly increase their fifth technology fleets, whereas China is poised to start fielding the world’s first sixth technology fighters across the yr 2030, Sweden’s small fighter trade stays near 20 years behind because it solely simply begins to belatedly transfer into the ‘4+ technology’ period.
