Royal Marine Reacts To JAS 39 Gripen: How Sweden Built The World's Best Non Stealth Fighter Jet

SAAB didn't start with cars, it's a airplane manufacturer that started to make cars in 1947 after the WWII. Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolaget, SAAB. Swedish airplane corporation. The cars are gone since 2011.

One thing that was mentioned but not really explained. It can land and take off from paved roadways and rearm and refuel in like 15 minutes by 5 guys in a truck, (4 conscripts and 1 trained tech). It's really designed for distributed defense warfare.

Looks like Eurofighter, what you should say is that Eurofighter looks like Gripen :) Gripen was first shown 1987 and Eurofighter 1994. I guess you could also argue that both are similar to Viggen, first flown 1968. The main characteristic would be the delta wing, borrowed from Draken, 1955 :)

Sweden does not need stealth..... "One Gripen pilot knocked down five F-16 block 50+ during close air combat in Red Flag" " 3 F-15C’s from the USAF were intercepted by a Gripen acting as an aggressor. The result was 2 F-15’s shot down and one managed to escape due to better thrust/weight."

I've heard a rumor that apparently the reason why cars have heated seats is because saab first created them for their pilots so they didn't have freeze their butts off during winter flight exercises.

The euro was shaped after this and not the other way around . This plane was designed way before the euro.

I think the F35 cost $44,000 per fligh hour. F16 costs $22,000 per flight hour and the Gripen about $4,700. It was a major requirement for development and allows for much more training.

1:16 That's like hearing someone say "I thought they only sold McFlurry's, but I never knew McDonald's also made burgers" 😁

Saab's slogan is literally, "Born from Jets".

As a Dane , we often enjoy some jokes and banter with and about our nordic neighbours and vice versa. But Swedish weapons! Outstanding and deadly!

This video was decent on going through the basics of the Gripen, but I think it went off of a template of things that other jets have and compared them mainly on those points. Because of that it missed a few of the more unique features of the Gripen that make it stand out more. To mention a few: - The ability to land and take off from straight stretches of normal road anywhere in Sweden. This is a core design decision behind Swedish jets as it's assumed that the Russians would rapidly take out all airfields to try to ground the Swedish airforce otherwise. - Its turnaround rate from landing until they can take off for another mission is only 10 to 20min depending on the type of mission. - It can be served by a ground crew of just 5 or 6 people and a resupply truck, where only one of them need to be a qualified tech engineer. - It's a very low-cost jet to run. The actual acquisition price might not be all that impressive. The brand-new E/F version costs slightly more than an F35. Probably much because of the industry of scale that Saab doesn't have with it's much lower number of produced jets. However, the initial cost pales in comparison to the cost of running a fleet of combat aircraft for 10-20 years. The per hour flight cost of the Gripen is reportedly about $4,700, the F35 costs almost ten times more and even the "budget-friendly" F16 costs considerably more to run. - It's by design very modular, making repeated upgrades to the system throughout its years of service very easy to do. This is the main reason why the mentioned "Meteor" missile was first fitted on the Gripens of all jets. Obviously this relative ease of upgrades also helps with the cost of those upgrades. - Saab decided to forego stealth on the new E/F version of the Gripen, mainly because of the prohibitive cost hike that would've come with it. However, as was mentioned in the video briefly, the Gripen is equipped with probably the most advanced EW suite currently in use. The full capabilities of it is ofc a closely guarded secret and it's Swedish airforce policy to not set the EW module to "War Mode" even in training exercises with external participants , in order to keep its full capabilities secret. However, it's reported that it can isolate the frequency of enemy radar systems (missiles and planes alike) and jam them, and spoof radar shadows of planes that are not actually there to confuse the enemy. - The radar module that came with the new Gripen E/F can also rotate in order to turn in a certain direction without showing it's hand by turning the nose of the plane towards it. This also means the radar system can continue feeding radar info to outgoing missiles even after turning away from the target. I believe it's the only jet that currently has this radar capability. As to your surprise about the size of the Swedish airforce, a more accurate number of the Gripens currently in service is about 100. Some more are currently out of service but can be fixed up pretty quickly, and an additional couple of planes are being rented out to other countries. This is nothing though, and at the height of Swedish military capabilities during the Cold War they had upwards of 1,000 planes in service, making it the 4th largest airforce in the world at the time. The reason being that, with the Soviets as the only plausible big threat in the region, if you look at the map it becomes obvious how the Baltic Sea acted as a huge moat between Sweden and the USSR. Getting the much larger Soviet military on to Swedish territory would reasonably be quite difficult in the event of a war. Therefore the Swedish military doctrine for defending itself was to make sure that the USSR couldn't get control of the Baltic Sea. Sweden at the time spent a lot on it's navy, it had big artillery pieces along much of the Swedish Baltic coast and Gotland island, and most of all it invested in a ferocious airforce that would make the Soviets think twice before trying it.

J = Jakt = Hunt A = Attack = Attack S = Span = Reconnaissance 39 = Model number Gripen = Griffin = Model Name

204 is a lot, but during the cold war we had over 1000 aircraft in the swedish airforce. 😅

Saab actually does not make cars anymore, the business was shut down back in 2012 (missed by many). However, in addition to the JAS 39, they also manufacture civil aircraft. They also make submarines (the stealth submarine that "sunk" the USS Ronald Reagan at a 2006 war game without being detected). In addition, the Swedish stealth corvettes known as the Visby class as well as the attack and landing ship combat boat CB90. Was that all? Nope 😉 They also own the famous artillery manufacturer Bofors, so besides cannons they produce anti-tank weapons such as the "Carl Gustaf" recoilless grenade launcher, the AT-4 anti-tank weapon (both used successfully in Ukraine). In addition to all this, various high end radar-, surveillance- and battle control systems 🙂😉😁

as a Canadian, we (meaning our government) decided to go with the F35 instead. it did come down to the Gripen and the F35 after eliminating the Super Hornet from the competition. I personally think we should have 2 types of fighter aircraft and have a mix of Gripens and F35's in separate roles.

I'm not sure, but since I was a kid in Sweden in the 70s I have always thought of SAAB as the company that made out fighter jets and had the cars as sort of a side business that benefitted from the R&D they did for the airplanes. So it's weird for me hearing that someone is surprised that they "also made jets", to me it's the other way around "they also made cars".

Saab doesn't just make aircraft, they also make a bunch of things that go boom and are very commonplace; the NLAW, AT-4 and Carl Gustaf are all Saab products. They also make smart artillery shells and collaborate in a bunch of missile systems (IRIS, Meteor, Taurus, GLSDB)

I love how he says it looks like the Euro Fighter, not knowing it was based on the 39 Gripen. :P

a lot of ex fighter pilots say this would be a better option for ukraine than the f16, these can be used on improvised runways while the f16 with its extra large intake need a clean paved runway

The Gripen is such a great aircraft. I think a lot more countries would buy them if it wasn't for already having agreements with US, which has suffered a lot of delays and extra expenses. When there are war times most countries don't want to hear that the planes they have ordered will be delayed by several years, and some countries have only received 3 planes of the 15+ they ordered. So It wouldn't surprise me if we see some of the wealthier countries start ordering Gripens as well.