Fighter test schedule published

BERN — The flight and ground trials with the five fighter aircraft candidates will take place in Payerne from April to June. The aircraft capabilities will be checked at the military airfield there in alphabetical order. The dates for media creators and spotters are also already fixed.

For each candidate, a total of eight missions with one or two combat aircraft will be conducted during four days of flight. The capabilities of the aircraft and the information from the submitted offers are checked. Beforehand, the providers have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with another flight with the specific procedures in the Swiss airspace. One flight will take place at night. For this, the starting times of the season must be adjusted accordingly, with the flights always ending before midnight. During bank holidays, no trial flights will be made.

The candidates are tested in alphabetical order according to the name of the manufacturer:
— Airbus, GER, Eurofighter: in calendar weeks 15 and 16
— Boeing, USA, F / A-18 Super Hornet: in calendar weeks 17 and 18
— Dassault, FRA, Rafale: in calendar weeks 20 and 21
— Lockheed Martin, USA, F-35A: in calendar weeks 23 and 24
— Saab, SWE, Gripen E: in calendar weeks 25 and 26

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/art…on-trials.html

There is no shortage of airframes in SwAF. Obviously the number is to low if you ask me, but the number is as high as it is politically decided to be.

If the politicians were to raise the number of airframes in the future (which is likely) there will be no shortages of Gripen airframes. There is still A/B’s left and the C/D’s have lot’s of lifetime left in them if they are to be kept longer.

I recall that when Sweden first ordered 60 Gripen E there was talk of a further 10 being added. When you talk of raising the number of airframes, are you referring to that?

Also, do you happen to know what is the purpose of retaining any A/B frames? Are these stock to be used for conversion to C/D if SAAB gains another customer for a Gripen C sale or lease? If that is the idea, won’t it be much quicker and cheaper to offer SwAF C’s once E’s are being delivered to the air force?

Thanks for any info.

Don’t get too excited about ‘decent sized budget’ just yet. Ministry of Finance announced recently that next Government needs to conjure up savings of around six billion euros by 2025. And that is assuming that current economic growth continues. By coincidence, that is almost exact same as current projected cost of HX fighter acquisition, and Finland has contemporary naval building program too competing for funds…

I appreciate that the government may be advised that they need to reduce spending but that does not mean savings have to come from the defence budget, does it? All the same I can see that short of postponing air force/naval procurements there might be pressure to focus more closely on the cost of an F-18 replacement.

Only if you ignore them moving the goalposts :stupid:

Got to agree with you there about moving those goalposts. They have only gone and moved SwAF service entry from 2023 to 2021, haven’t they| :apologetic:

Gripen has been in service for over 20 years. The first production aircraft was delivered to the RSwAF in 1993.

Gripen is a light fighter. If you cannot stretch to the cost of operating a medium fighter, you cannot buy a medium fighter.IIn that situation f you need to retire your current fleet, you have 2 choices: 0 medium fighters or as many light fighters as you can afford.

Swedish Air Force Gripen E’s to be made entirely from new parts.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/gripen-e-production-tweak-safeguards-swedish-fighter-454732/