Do you think they'll hitch on Tempest or make something wholly original?
https://www.saab.com/newsroom/press-releases/2024/saab-receives-order-for-swedish-future-fighter-concept-studies
https://corren.se/story-nyheter/linkoping/artikel/arbetet-har-borjat-nu-utvecklas-linkopings-nasta-stridsflygplan/jp4700qj
Sweden has 3 choices at the moment, they're not committed to any single option yet.
> Three options are on the table for Stockholm: Either “build a system, develop a system with someone, or… acquire a system,” said the official, speaking under Chatham House Rules at the International Fighter Conference here in Madrid. “It’s an open question.”
> Indicating some desired level of control by Sweden over a next-gen timeline, the official said Phase 1 will cover concept exploration between 2023 to 2025 with Phase 2 to address concept and technology development from 2026 to 2030. Operational analysis, system concepts and aircraft demonstrators are among the main lines of effort that are included across the two phases. Technology development activities will span from 2023 beyond 2030, while demonstrator planning will commence in 2026.
The SAAB studies announced are part of the "building it themselves" option, the are set to decide on a final choice by 2031.
Yeah, I still think they'll realize it's too expensive and go back to GCAP/FCAS, though maybe they can convince Brazil to join with $$$ and basic manufacturing to offset some of the costs, though I doubt brazil would want to do that as they seem keen on trying to go domestic after buying the Gripen NG tech transfer rights.
Good for SAAB. I'm worried it's going to be like the Gripen and be too late to the party to make a real impact though.
It's almost certainly a development of Gripen. Probably with an IWB, IRST, and RAM coating along with drone wingmen.
It would take an extra 5-10 years if they wanted to develop a new drastically different platform. And cost billions more.
Gripen with stealthy F-22 engines and VTOL capabilities
Doubtful, the reason (according to industry rumor) sweden dropped out of Tempest/GCAP is because the UK and Japan were both settling on a twin-engined plane with a fairly large airframe, something Sweden specifically didn't want as they view twin-engine fighters as too maintenance heavy for their airforce and they want the ability to take off and land on Swedish highways which means fairly small size/weight airframe.
So I doubt they'd want to build something around a pair of F119 engines as their size/weight would necessitate a decently large airframe.
>they view twin-engine fighters as too maintenance heavy for their airforce and they want the ability to take off and land on Swedish highways which means fairly small size/weight airframe.
Unless they significantly up their budget and war machine, which with NATO may be in the cards
The road issue still remains, Sweden wants to be near impervious to attack, and centralizing its air force on airfields compromises the massive advantage the geography gives them.
Given that Sweden in NATO allows it to massively help both Norway and Finland's supply issues by giving it a consistent landbridge, making it as unassailable as possible is still the ideal.
So it's basically going to be another 4.5-gen fighter like the KAAN but with one engine and using inexpensive technologies like the Gripen?
I don't get the point of making a new fighter design if Sweden can't afford any tech more advanced than the Gripen. There aren't even that many Gripens, they should be using that money to build more factories to mass produce them faster instead of starting a new aircraft
This SAAB study is more or less looking at if it's better to upgrade Gripen, or start something new.
Needing to fit a plane on a road does not prevent it from being 6th gen or stealth.
Swedish super fighter would be cool. Just one thing is if the air force has the budget and if anyone would buy it.
>and if anyone would buy it.
If they build it then the one customer that truly matters for them will. Any other sales are just a nice little bonus if they happen. The hyperfocus on export sales that PrepHole has is just a bunch of teenagers having a dick measuring contest.
>The hyperfocus on export sales that PrepHole has is just a bunch of teenagers having a dick measuring contest.
The lack of export sales basically means developing a new domestic fighter is a no go from the start.
Its already an issue with a gripen that the low production numbers make the cost per unit go waaay up. An f-35 is cheaper yo buy than a gripen e...
Not really. Viggen was not a no go. Only time Sweden replaced vehicles with foreign systems has been with certain ground systems for the most part. Never the air force.
Now with the US having a schizo attack in the house it's also more important across the EU to have the ability to supply itself. Indigenous systems are more in vogue that way.
Viggen is multiple generations out of date and orders of magnitude less complex than a 6th gen. As fighter costs have spiralled export markets have become a requirement for all but the largest militaries.
There's no proven rule for that though.
Can't prove a rule without examples, the only examples HAVE ballooned in cost.
There is some argument to be made that Gripen is cheaper over its service life due to the decreased maintenance costs, but you also lose F-35 capability, so really it's a wash for most countries, which is why they go with F-35 if they can generally.
I think one shouldn't underestimate the national pride side of things. The domestically designed and produced fighter planes have a great symbolic value, as does the knock-on effects for Linköping, with Linköping University having close ties to SAAB and a lot of people working at SAAB Aeronautics. There is of course a cost limit, but I think the Swedish government could be willing to put quite a bit of money into a new fighter.
Yeah, people buying it abroad was never a focus with Viggen. With Gripen it was a post cold war bonus goal. Chances are a 6th gen replacement would fall under most of the same circumstances as those two.
I wonder if they might consider getting the other nordics onboard with a 6th gen. For most of them it can be worked to better assist the existing F-35s now that the air forces have a more unified command.
>I wonder if they might consider getting the other nordics onboard with a 6th gen.
What if we get a bunch of countries with near non-existent aerospace to develop a 6th gen.
Don't different Europeans produce F-35 parts as per the Joint Strike Fighter program? If there's any experience from that in Norway and Denmark, it could be tapped into.
AFAIK, Denmark has a storage/distribution center for F-35 spare parts inventory for Europe, but they don't actually manufacture any of those parts.
>Don't different Europeans produce F-35 parts as per the Joint Strike Fighter program?
GCAP currently has
>the 2nd largest F-35 partner with some of the best aerospace companies
>A country with an F-35 FACO and MROU with wing production
>A country that made the RAM and ceramics for the F-22, a 5th gen demonstrator, an F-35 FACO and MROU with parts production, and some of the best radar tech in the world
>2 of the top 5 jet engine manufacturers
and people are still being cautiously optimistic
Meanwhile with FCAS you have some still decent aerospace industries and they are flopping at basically every turn with a 10 year delayed delivery schedule. I have the lowest expectations of a nordic 6th gen projects if it would ever surface. Sweden is much better off with their original plan after leaving GCAP which was to buy the drone tech and just implementing it onto new Gripen airframes.
>Sweden is much better off with their original plan after leaving GCAP which was to buy the drone tech and just implementing it onto new Gripen airframes.
Which is likely what the study is about. They want a new power plant for increased thrust and power generation capacity, as well as reduced IR signature. Add in a radar absorbing coating and IRST with some collaborative combat drones and Sweden has a potent upgraded Gripen for 2040+.
Honestly a proper Gripen upgrade for 2040 would have to include a hull that's better for radar deflection. If you aren't gunning for stealth, which is literally the silver bullet against soviet garbage, you're not playing the right game.
Yeah I think an IWB and more stealthy (at least frontal RCS) airframe would be included in that.
It'll likely still be largely Gripen based though.
>2 of the top 5 jet engine manufacturers
rolls royce and ?
He’s probably thinking of IHI, which is a stretch anyways. RR is also falling off in the civilian market
IHI makes F-135 engines under contract for the F-35 program.
They don't make the F135 engine, but they do final assembly, maintenance/repair, and will likely be contracted to do upgrade work on the F135 engines for the Asia/Pacific region whenever the F135 ECU program gets finished.
Forgot link
https://www.ihi.co.jp/en/all_news/2023/aeroengine_space_defense/1200226_3529.html
IHI XF-9 beats everything RR has (publicly) acknowledged to date.
It's also just a single prototype
Which is still more than RR has shown
Other people have covered my reasoning, but lets just say
>P&W
>GE
>IHI
>RR
>NPO Saturn
Literally who would you put in place of IHI. You have the chinks who are barely getting to 1970s US tech and Safran who have their shitty underpowered M88. Unironically the next in line would probably be MHI with one of the largest global market shares in turbine engines.
A prototype doesn't make them a top 5 jet engine manufacturer
It's all hype until they're actually mass producing the thing
Then why is RR touted as even better when they don't even show off prototypes with equal or better performance than the XF-9 was showing in 2018.
Because RR has a proven track record.
The xf9 was also built for a research project by the japanese government, jet engine manufacturers don't build engines like it's a dick measuring contest. The XF9 has impressive specs but we don't know how reliable it is, how expensive it'd be to manufacture and how it would perform during flight.
>Because RR has a proven track record.
IHI has been making jet engines since WW2.
>jet engine manufacturers don't build engines like it's a dick measuring contest.
Literally every publicly traded company does this to attract investors. Rolls Royce does this. They did it with their UltraFan they did it with Orpheus. GE did it with their XTE77/SE2. P&W did it with STEP.
Delete this, RR is the best. Anything you say against this is wrong.
>NPO Saturn
>Literally who would you put in place of IHI. You have the chinks who are barely getting to 1970s US tech and Safran who have their shitty underpowered M88.
Holy fricking delusion. Rating vatBlack folk above Safran. Safran is pretty dominant in helicopter power plants and when it comes to airliner business, they are 50% partner in CFM. Problem with Safran isn't their technical competence or technology, its how company is run in regards to other shit like joint projects. I guess you have be GE or RR, big enough to tell them frick off if they aren't playing the ball to get 'em to actually cooperate. I guess that comes with the territory company being French.
>Safran
All the important high tech shit in the M88 like the compressor and turbine blades are done by the fricking Germans lol
M88 is also far from anything high-end.
F119 and F135 are high-end turbofan engines.
Hell even the Russians have AL-51F-1, though I doubt they have the ability to mass produce it, they've at least flown with them.
Norway, Denmark, and Finland are happy with the 5th gen F-35 and don't plan on getting a 6th gen. They don't have anywhere near the budget to pay for it nor do they have domestic aircraft industry to support. SAAB would be better served by making leveraging their relationship with Boeing to get X-66A data and redeveloping their civil aviation business. Their position as a foreign government and the samll size of domestic aircraft orders means that they'll never be able to compete with the large European and American giants.
Sweden's already collabing on GCAP for the flygsystem2020
No they're not
> “We did have both bilateral and trilateral cooperation with Britain and also with Italy on the FCAS program,” said the official. “We walked away from that about a year ago and started some national studies… connecting to what capabilities are needed for the future.” The official declined to comment on the reason behind Sweden ending collaboration with the UK and Italy.
we're talking about programs that will produce a final product here, not corporate wellfare
GCAP has more legs than this SAAB study or the french/german/spanish FCAS.
>collabing on GCAP
They left before it even became GCAP. They were an observing member of FCAS/Tempest, then when Japan was joining, Sweden decided not to continue their observer status.
Pointless
Considering the "future fighter concept studies" it seems things haven't been nailed down yet. But looking at the alternatives...
It seems the UK wants Tempest to be a big boy air superiority multirole fighter. You know, Eurofighter, F-15, Flanker, that kind of thing. (Nothing aid about the actual capacity of these aircraft, but it's what they aimed for.) And that sounds very expensive for Sweden.
On the other hand, Sweden developing a new fighter on its own? Viggen was bad enough, Gripen even worse. The impression I've gotten is that ever since the Gripen project was launched it's been considered to be the last one.
Could they get enough know-how "for free" from their participation in the Tempest program to suddenly make it viable for Sweden to develop a mini-Tempest? I guess if anyone could do modularity and odd solutions well enough to make that happen it'd be SAAB, but I can't say it feels very likely. If nothing else I guess there's more room in the budget all of sudden than there used to be.
Isn't the Draken kinda stealth already?
No
It has a decent frontal RCS by design, but it's not "stealthy" by any real means.
It has no radar-absorbing material coating, and it doesn't have a sleek all-aspect low RCS airframe. It also doesn't appear to use any special/advanced ways to mask the IR signature from the engine.
The picture in the OP is a meme of a "stealth Draken" but by itself it's not very stealthy, it just looks very aesthetic
It looks like j20 without the cucknards
Saab fighters are max aesthetic. I can't wait to see what they come up with. It better not be another F-35 clone.
they want a single-engine 5th/6th gen multi-role with collaborative drones.
It'll be like a late production block F-35.
>Saab fighters are max aesthetic.
they're mediocre except for the Draken, but the Draken is the prettiest jet fighter ever
Now that Sweden has abandoned neutrality, is there any point in developing an indigenous fighter aside from industry gibs?
It's hard to imagine Sweden being capable of producing true 5th gen aircraft without assistance, much less a 6th gen. That being said it's not unreasonable to expect a solid 4.5 gen coming out of Saab, something akin to the KF-21 etc. What's more likely is that these studies are being carried to inform the swedes on 1. If it's viable to go it alone and 2. Which program best suits their needs if it isn't.
The problem being the more time they spend debating internally the later they'll be joining an existing program, limiting their ability to influence it's design to suit their needs. GCAP for example has already faced opposition to introducing new members as things like workshare and contributions are ironed out.
They already have a 4.5 gen fighter, developing another one is pointless.
Sweden is capable of designing an indigenous 5th gen fighter, the question is if they're willing to pay for it. Making a 5th gen fighter isn't cheap and while Sweden is wealthy it's also very small.
Looks seksy, love the design.
But needs winglets for agility reasons.
If it can cobra it's agile enough
Is this bullish for SAAB-B?
Late 21' was the time
NLAWs popping tanks really goes a long way in driving up stocks
Sweden should buy a couple of F-15EX squadrons to go along with the Gripen E's. That will do against Russia
It would make a lot more sense to just buy more Gripens if we need more 4+ gen fighters. Given how terrible the Russian Air Force has prooven to be, even old Gripen C/Ds would probably down anything Russia has.
the production lines are full for the Gripen, and it has limited range and load
Beeing able to carry 20+ AMRAAMS is pretty pointless when Russia cant get 20 planes airborne at the same time anyway. And range isnt really an issue when you are located next to Russia (and arial refueling is an option too). The production lines is indeed full, but so is the pilot training programme, but then again, F-15 pilots would probably be trained in the US anyway, so that might be a moot point.
Sweden doesn't own any airborne tankers. So they'd need to use a NATO ally.
One of our C-130 Hercules does arial refueling, I have personally flown in it. That said, yes NATO tankers would be needed, but we are a NATO member, so we wouldnt be alone in a hypothetical war anyway.
Having a single plane capable of aerial refuelling isn't the same as an actual independent aerial refuelling capability.
That plane will not be available 24/7/365. It has to undergo maintenance, meaning there are always going to be times when it won't be available if it were to be needed in an emergency.
Obviously, they have allies that would happily lend support, but it IS a limitation of their Air Force.
>but it IS a limitation of their Air Force.
Is it really tho, when a Gripen can fly to Moscow and back without refueling as it is?
>Is it really tho
Yes.
In what way? The Swedish Air Force has no intention of operating further away anyway. Its a bit like saying that my handgun is shit because it cant hit steel at 300 yards. I dont shoot steel at 300 yards with my handgun so who cares?
Because aerial refueling isn't JUST used for raw distance, sometimes it's used so you can keep flying over a specific area for an extended period without needing to have another group of fighters take off, fly over to take over, so you can fly back and refuel. Having a handful of tankers would allow your fighters to stay in the relevant area longer.
Just because Sweden doesn't need the capability in their normal operations doesn't mean there would be NO benefit to a larger fleet of refueling tankers, it's literally why their air force has been doing joint refueling practice with NATO.
It's a capability the Swedish airforce lacks, that's all I'm saying. To disagree just shows you're moronic, or coping.
Feels a bit like we are arguing over semantics here. But yes, it is a capability Sweden lacks, and that is for good reson, since those funds are of a lot more use in other parts of the air force. After all, none of the other Nordic countries has their own areal refueling capabilty either, and honestly I cant think of any other country of similar size and budget as Sweden that actually does have that capacity...
I never said sweden should go out and spend the money to buy a tanker fleet, my ONLY point in this entire series of posts is that Sweden lacks the ability to aerial refuel in any real capacity and having a single C-130H with the capability isn't the same thing has having that capability for actual larger operational use.
>Sweden lacks the ability to aerial refuel in any real capacity and having a single C-130H with the capability isn't the same thing has having that capability for actual larger operational use.
Did anyone in this thread ever state that it is?
When you corrected the other anon about the C-130H the implication in your post was Sweden DOES have the capability;
>see here is this C-130H that does it.
Well, Sweden does. Its just a very limited one. It was even followed by a statement that its not enough for large operations and that NATO allies are needed for that type of missions.
so yea, you're a nitpicking coper.
Enjoy.
>Original statement: Sweden doesnt have ANY tankers
>Proves that Sweden does indeed have a tanker
If that is beeing nitpicky in your book mate, go ahead. I guess 1 = 0 in whatever 3rd world education you had.
The original statement wasn't me anon
Understandable. Have a nice day
Drone tankers are becoming a thing. Being able to bring what is basically a bloodsack along for your flight is why 6th gens with drone control are the new hotness
What if you want to bomb some refinery in Ingria? Gripen cant carry such a big load deep inside Russian lines
Use more aircraft, areal refueling or cruise missiles. Or even better, call an ally. If we are at the point where a NATO country is bombing deep in mainland Russia, we are not doing it alone.
Some kind of 5.5 or 6th gen that can do drone stuff while also doing the road airfield trick feels like it'd go better. The drones could fill missile, refueling (+range) and radar in a more scaleable way.
>Stealth Draken
LEWD
If they can sell enough planes, will they bring back their cars? 🙁
No. SAAB auto-mobile was completely split off from its parent company back in 1989, and the aircraft/military company has never shown any interest in getting back into the car business. The best you can hope for is probably for (military) SAAB to get fed up and buy back the name to protect their brand from all the shady-investor-bullshit that keeps surrounding the thoroughly mutilated corpse of the car manufacturer.
>the aircraft/military company has never shown any interest in getting back into the car business
It's a hopeless industry to get into. Even Volvo is Chinese these days. There is no competing with the powerhouses in car manufacturing unless you have some groundbreaking tech to hype you.
Honestly the moment any big war goes down we should just seize Volvo immediately. Total oversight to let the Chinese buy anything that big.
>Even Volvo is Chinese these days.
It was sold to Chinks by Ford. Selling Volvo Cars Burgers with ADHD attention span and total forcus on quarterly profits without long term strategy was mistake. That being said Volvo Trucks is the actual Volvo company.
lmfao, absolutely no one has a working *TRUE* 5thgen with all its capabilities, ALL THE TIME, lmfao, and ~~*you people*~~ are talking about 6th gens now?
>why?
Because the US is working on two 6th gen programs, and at the same time Europe has 2-3 6th gen programs.
We're discussing it because the industry is discussing it.
do you think it will have h-e-l-m-e-t-s?
6th gen is fricking moronic
the future belongs to drones
then i guess it's nice that 6th gen generally INCLUDES drones within the umbrella.
Why don't they just bite the bullet and co-develop the GCAP with Japan, Italy and the UK? Sure, it messes with their service doctrine, but that's not something an infrastructure improvement project couldn't solve either. At least then, they could have the ability to spread the costs of development across the entire group and sales and compatibility will be guaranteed.
It's the infrastructure, doctrine, and cost.
Simply put, they expect GCAP to cost about as much as NGAD, so $150-300M per airframe.