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Saab Gripen
Hungary - Air Force
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Saab Gripen
Hungary - Air Force
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Saab Gripen
Hungary - Air Force
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Saab Gripen
The Gripen is designed for the expected high demands on flying performance,
flexibility, effectiveness, survivability, and availability for the future of
air combat. The designation JAS stands for Jakt (Fighter), Attack (Attack), and
Spaning (Reconnaissance), indicating that the Gripen is a multirole aircraft that
can fulfill each mission type equally well.
Flying properties and performance are optimised for fighter missions with high
demands on speed, acceleration, and turning performance. The combination of delta
wing and canards gives the JAS 39 Gripen very good takeoff and landing
performance and superb flying characteristics. The totally integrated avionics
makes it a "programmable" aircraft. With the built in flexibility and development
potential the whole JAS 39 Gripen system will retain and enhance its
effectiveness and potential well into the 21st century.
Gripen affords far more flexibility than earlier generations of combat aircraft,
and its operating costs will only be about two thirds of those for Viggen. This
is especially impressive as the Gripen is a more capable aircraft with a low
purchase price.
The specifications for the Gripen required the ability to operate from 800 m
runways. Early on in the program all flights from Saab's facility in Linköping
were flown from within a 9 m x 800 m outline painted on the runway. Stopping
distance is reduced by extending the relatively large airbrakes, using the control
surfaces to push the aircraft down enabling the brakes to apply more force, and
tilting the canards forwards making them into large airbrakes.
In designing the aircraft several layouts were studied. Saab ultimately
selected an unstable canard layout to give the greatest benefits to performance.
The canard configuration gives a high onset of pitch rate and low drag enabling
the aircraft to be faster, have longer range, and carry a larger useful payload.
Already in operational service with the Swedish Air Force, which has ordered 204
aircraft (including 28 dual-seater), the Gripen has also been ordered by the
South African Air Force (28 aircraft), Hungary, and the Czech Republic
(14 aircraft each).
The aircraft cost US$ 25 million in 1998.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Saab Gripen".
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