Swedish Air Force

I'm Robert Wall, Aviation Week's Executive Editor for Defense and Space.

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.

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.

These are incredible marvels.

If you look into, to be honest, last week we had a centenary of the Swedish Air Force, and we've seen the air show, 230,000 people came to see it.

We observed what aviation does there.

We've seen the aircraft that are leading the way to the new, well, century for the Air Force here, but also the next level of warfighting, the future warfighting.

And that's one country, one manufacturer.

As you said, the Gripen F is being developed in conjunction with Brazil, but predominantly Swedish technology for the Swedish Air Force and increasingly being considered as an export by nations around the world.

So I think it's going to be interesting viewing over the next couple of months as to where else we start to see Saab aircraft appearing.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point to make, even after my somewhat crass shoehorning segue to lead you into it.

I think to your point about the long-held views on the importance of security and the amount of investment that the Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, et cetera, have placed into security since essentially the end of Second World War.

My aviation-obsessed middle son reminded me recently that the Swedish Air Force during the Cold War, I think, was the fourth or fifth largest air forces in the world, which is not something that's typically known, you know, as everyone thinks of Pacific sort of Nordic countries.

They have always taken great care with their

security, of course.

I mean, in terms of these countries are known, were known at least internationally for their mediation, peace efforts, diplomatic approaches to conflict elsewhere.

But at home, they've always been very preoccupied with keeping a level of deterrent power that they themselves are responsible for.

The Swedish Air Force is a very good example of that.

The Norwegian military production, which has truly played a role with regard to The war in Ukraine is another example.

Obviously, there are two concerns.

One is the future of the Swedish Air Force, and the other is the future of Saab and what they can do industrially.

They've always been great at small, compact combat air vehicle integrations.

This is going to be terrific.

Saab, the Swedish aerospace company, not the car manufacturer, though they share a heritage, has been building fighters since the nineteen forties.

The Gripen, which means Griffin in Swedish, first flew in nineteen eighty-eight and entered service with the Swedish Air Force in nineteen ninety-seven.

It has gone through several generations since then, and the current generation is the E and F series.

The E is the single-seat combat variant.

Yeah.

Well, I've been in the Swedish Air Force before, and when I, when I start studying for nurse, doing nurse school and Sande's, uh...

Well, from that point on, I have kept a toe within the armed forces, uh, alongside with the, uh, civil career in the ambulance service and the hospital service.

And now today, I'm part-time, uh, working as a combat nurse.