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Saab’s Gripen E has yet to enter Swedish Air Force service, but the manufacturer is already being asked to think about what comes next.
Having awarded Saab and GKN Aerospace contracts for initial future combat aircraft studies, the Swedish government could be firing the starting pistol on yet another such program for Europe.
With Stockholm eager to preserve its national fighter development capability—and since neither the French, German and Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS) nor the Italian, Japanese and UK Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) quite fit its needs—Sweden has launched an effort to work out its next steps.
The Vagval Stridsflyg project—literally “choice of path for combat aircraft”—aims to help the country’s leaders decide by 2030 whether to pursue future combat aircraft development for the 2040s and beyond. The studies aim to develop and mature technologies and pave the way for ground-based and flying demonstrators.
Sweden is modernizing its fleets with the new-generation Saab Gripen E, which will likely operate well into the 2040s, and plans to extend the lives of earlier Gripen C/Ds to keep them in service into the 2030s.
Saab says it will explore both crewed and uncrewed concepts, while GKN Aerospace, which builds the GE Aerospace engines powering both Gripen types, will look at advanced power and propulsion system options for a future platform.
Given that Sweden’s commanders plan to continue the doctrine of operating from dispersed bases and road runways in wartime—despite the country’s entry into NATO—the future platform will have to meet the demands of operating from shorter strips and be easy to maintain in an austere environment.
Options could include buying yet more Gripens and spurring development of collaborative combat aircraft to add mass to the existing Gripen fleet. The studies could also drive the need for a more advanced fighter to deal with new regional threats.
“These [studies] are an important step to clarify technology choices and commercial action options before decisions on how the future combat aviation capabilities are to be supplied,” says Lars Helmrich, director of air and space systems at the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration, which contracted the studies. “Considering the long development times and the decisions that need to be made, it is good that the work starts now.”
Sweden had been linked to the UK-led Tempest FCAS, which has evolved into GCAP. Neither the timelines nor the aircraft expected to emerge from FCAS and GCAP would fit Swedish needs, and they would not meet its aim of preserving national combat aircraft development, either.
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