Saab AB

Trump says the move is a potentially hostile act and would block trade with Europe as a result.

The Swedish government has awarded Saab $400 million in contracts to develop next-generation combat aircraft technologies.

At the Air and Space Forces Association's annual Airspace Cyber Conference and Trade Show, U.S. Air Force leaders said they would acquire 500 collaborative combat aircraft and another 500 massed modular aircraft that would be a cheaper version of the MQ-9 Reaper by General Atomics that General Ken Cruiser Wilsbach, the chief of staff of the Air Force, has dubbed the Iran war's most valuable player.

Also at AFA, the Air Force is interested in buying new F-16 Fighting Falcon jets from Lockheed to fill out the service's aging force structure.

Sash, let me come to you because we do have some U.S. news that we have to discuss in some of the announcements that have happened.

But I wanted to get your sense on this.

the Swedish government's decision to invest $400 million with Saab and the kind of capabilities they're going to develop.

Obviously, in the beginning, they were part of the British-Italian effort to develop a new combat aircraft that is, of course, in the form of the Global Combat Air Program.

As well, the approach that they took, a quick down select strategy, And moving on, also I think is far fairer to a lot of competitors.

You'll notice Saab didn't complain.

The French didn't really complain.

They were told early they didn't have to invest a lot of money.

Very good overview of that.

Every week or so I get pulled into a grip and debate on social media and whether I want to or not.

Great aircraft, Saab's a great company.

This isn't about that.

Do we need two aircraft? Should it be the Gripen? Should it be the Rafale? Should it be a future sixth generation aircraft? What are the sixth generation aircraft being developed now? There's more than just G-Cap.

There's also the Saab is developing a capability.

The Germans have not landed on that question yet, South Koreans either.

And so there's a lot of discussion, but we're still too late in that process.

They're just being announced now.

The Swedish government is putting money into the future of its fighter force, giving Saab a $400 million order for future combat air work, including demonstrators, autonomy research, signature management, and other technologies for both occupied and unoccupied aircraft.

And Pratt & Whitney has licensed Hermes, the folks who are trying to build a hypersonic transport, to manufacture F-100 engines, the kind that power not only some F-16s and F-15s, but also Hermes' quarter horse.

That was announced before the F-16G broke cover, but that might not be the only aircraft that could benefit from these engines.

So there is even a possibility they may not adapt the NGAP until whatever second tranche of F-47s comes along.

Okay, Swedish government, big, big investment from a Swedish standpoint.

And obviously Saab has been doing some extraordinary work.

Anybody familiar with the company knows all the work that they have been doing and some really impressive work on signature management, on low observability and integration and everything else that goes into both occupied and unoccupied aircraft.

And I did vehicle or aeronautical engineering.

And, you know, there are only three companies in Sweden that would do... hire people like me and that would have been Bofors that does rockets in Karlskoga and it would have been Saab in Linköping that does the Gripen fighter jet and there was a secret wind tunnel that the defense had and none of them were in Stockholm so part of that was okay you can use your equations for rockets or you can use it for finance and I got to do a master's thesis at a bank and I loved it.

I loved the people.

I loved the polls at the trading desk.

The T-7A Red Hawk is that replacement.

The program is a Boeing and Saab joint venture, and it is a genuinely modern aircraft.

Advanced fly-by-wire flight controls, a cockpit designed from the start to mirror fifth-generation aircraft.

When a student pilot climbs into an F-35 for the first time, the idea is that nothing in the T-7A's interface should feel alien to them.

Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries developed the T-50, which a number of allied air forces have adopted.

The Alenia Aermacchi M-346 has a significant presence in the Israeli and Italian training pipelines.

The T-7A had competition, and Boeing and Saab won the US contract in two thousand and eighteen in what was at the time considered a decisive Air Force selection.

The fact that deliveries have been slower than the original schedule anticipated does not change that fundamental decision.

Canada's Secretary of State for Defense Procurement, Stephen Fuhrer.

CBC News has learned the government chose to proceed with the purchase of the Global Eye surveillance planes from the Swedish company Saab without a firm guarantee it met all of the Air Force's requirements.

In light of the trade war with the US, Fuhrer says it's vital Canada expand its defense industry.

We need to leverage this money, uh, to stimulate our own economy.

It means that the government has to come out and accept the operational risk that it's imposing, and I think that's the challenge, right? Is who wears the, the operational risk that we're asking the Canadian Armed Forces to accept?

In this case, the military is concerned about the Global Eye's radar coverage, its relatively small cabin size, and the absence of air-to-air refueling, critical for Arctic missions.

Saab test pilot Jussi Hamitolja is confident the obstacles can be overcome.

We have the, like, a spiraling development process on how to improve our systems across the board at Saab.

Tony, why don't we start with you? You went to Sweden where the Swedish Air Force this year is celebrating its 100th anniversary and had a big get together and fly by.

And Saab, which earlier this year at Singapore had kind of talked a bit about the fact that they're working on CCA concepts and are looking to fly something in the not too distant future, used that opportunity of everyone getting together in Linköping to Give us a bit more detail on what they're up to.

And they showed you some stuff and they talked a bit about what those initiatives are.

So why don't you kind of share with our audience what they told you?

Sure thing.

Yeah, he's sort of given it away.

Obviously, it's a crucial occasion really for Saab and the Swedish Air Force, a centenary since it was first formed, actually at Linköping as well on the airfield there.

So Saab really wants to sort of start talking about what it's been looking at, some of the technology areas it's been studying ahead of – basically a couple of areas that they're beginning to think about.

because that's a $75 billion cost over the life of the program, which by the way, if you're doing math, is about 3.5% of Canadian GDP.

You wanna offset the pain of American tariffs? How about canceling the F-35 deal tomorrow and getting something more reasonable? such as the Gripen produced by Swedish Saab, which number one, is created for Nordic cold climates.

Number two, was designed by Sweden to fight the guerrilla air campaign against the Soviet Union.

What that means is that Gripen has an incredibly short takeoff and landing profile, which is perfect for Canada.

I mean, I think that he will probably pull out of it.

I think that they've committed to a certain number up front, but I don't think that they will go there.

And there's a piece in the Globe and Mail today about Gripens, Saab selling Gripens to Canada in the future and negotiations that are going back and forth.

If Canada needs, to your point, like probably still makes sense for them to have an Air Force base.