SAAB Viggen

[Arclite01]

Was watching a programme on these on Sky last night - they seem(ed) an awesome aeroplane for their time and incredibly versatile.

Did anyone here ever fly one or have a go 1-v-1 or 2-v-2 against them ?

What were they like ?

and sort of related - the SAAB Gripen was also shown, since BAe have an interest in Gripen was there any reason why we did not consider buying that rather than the Eurotreacle Typhoon ?

Thanks Guys

Arc

[dalek]

In our C - 130 we escorted a couple of Harriers to the Malmen airshow in 1987
The Swedes were trying to arrange Air Combat missions the following day. Don't know if it happened.

[Flap62]

No dact against them but from capabilities in briefs by them seem remember;

Big donk

RWR next to useless

Radar not too bad

Can't see too much out of them.

Of course, in-briefs were usually carried out in an alcoholic haze and so the above is almost certainly wrong.

[mike rondot]

I had two trips in the back of a Viggen during 1984. We flew around Sweden at and sometimes below the tree line (10-30m) at M:0.9, accellerating to M:0.95 on IP to target runs. That is 650knots at 30 feet in real money. All under a 200ft overcast in not very good visibility. Rock-steady handling and all flown in Mil power with about 93 per-cent RPM set. Plenty in reserve, plus reheat. Everything about the aircraft and the way the Swedish Air Force operated it was very, very impressive.

It changed my life. Not really surprising after stepping out of a Jaguar.

During a presentation on the Gripen, one of the SAAB team told us that the benchmark requirements for the Gripen design were that it must outperform the Viggen in every category; performance, weapons, radar etc. The Viggen in its various guises outperformed as a weapons system anything the RAF had in 1984 or was ever likely to get, and the Swedes have now replaced it with something better. There is a message to the purcasing department in there somewhere.

[M609]

Too bad they forgot about range/payload........

[Confucius]

Too bad they forgot about range/payload........

What, like they did with every raf POS too?

[charlie55]

I offer the following summary of the Gripen:

It offers 80% of the capability of Typhoon at 50% of the price, but if you decide you need the other 20% capability, then you have to pay for Typhoon. The really smart stuff costs.

Buying a Swedish aircraft puts money into Swedish pockets; generally the UK tends to buy British so that we spend taxpayers money on keeping a UK workforce employed.

Gripen is a great 'light' fighter, probably the best aircraft for smaller air forces looking to buy a high quality aircraft, having many of the features previously provided by Viggen. But even the Swedes admit that Viggen was very expensive and ultimately unaffordable. Look in the press at who is ordering Gripen and where Saab's markets might be.

[Ali Barber]

I too flew in the Viggen in the 80s and was incredibly impressed, both at the performance of the aircraft and the professionalism of their military. I would echo everything Mike said. Plus, if Fg Off Bloegs on the squadron had a good ides on how to improve the aircraft, he could simply phone Saab and tell them. They would then look at the idea and, if it was viable, present it to the Swedish MOD to consider incorporating it. They also had their version of JTIDS and RAIDS at least 10 years ahead of us.

Weird things about the aircraft: speed was in Km/Hr and altimeter in metres with zero at the bottom of the dial, it had a cutting strip on the front of the control column that rattled against your palm if you exceeded the AOA and got more vicious deending on how much you exceeded it by (it hurt!), and forward visibility from the back seat was through 2 periscopes that were just too wide to allow binocular vision. Everyone was authorised to 30 metres overland and 10 metres oversea, except recce guys who were authorised to 10 metres everywhere. I saw 1,000 Km/Hr at 10 metres as we rushed up a fjord towards the Swede's uncle's chalet and had the seat motored up as high as it would go!!.

One more story. We had a simulator competition on who could take-off, get to 10,000 metres and land again the quickest. I was trying to kill the speed for a straight in with a series of wild high-g manoeuvres at low level and departed. I went to eject and missed the handle completely because the Viggen had US style arm-rest levers instead of Martin Baker centre pull to initiate the seat - I was pulling at thin air! During the early Grippen trials, the aircraft departed immediately before landing and the pilot stayed in while it landed upside down. He had tried to initiate ejection but the Grippen had a Martin Baker seat and he had tried to pull the arm-rest levers - pulling at thin air again. As it was, he would have been fired into the ground and killed instantly if the seat had fired, but the cockpit retained its integrity while landing upside down and he was subsequently lifted out relatively unscathed.

[M609]

Same pilot walked away from an ejection over Stockholm city (Display over the harbour) some months later. The aircraft departed after PIO.

Hardly 80% of the EFs range? :ok:

[Safeware]

M609,

IIRC the Stockholm crash was due to a configuration control mistake in the FCS software. The a/c configuration wasn't catered for in the standard of software loaded and so where the pilot expected to have control, he lost it. Not PIO then. But if anyone has better info .....

As for the Viggen - awesome aircraft to watch, esp the short landing, J turn and take off. Oh, and taxiing at speeds that I think would be considered mad here. A pilot told me that the police had clocked them taxiing at over 100km/hr around their dispersed motorway sites.

sw

[Skunkerama]

Has the dispersed motorway solution ever been tried in Britain?

[GeeRam]

Has the dispersed motorway solution every been tried in Britain?

IIRC the Swedes designed there M-way network from the outset to cater for this.
Not something the UK road network has ever been designed for (e.g. pre-built dispersal areas acessed off the M-way) and would be virtually impossible to do in the UK, not to mention the chaos it would cause in the UK whenever you would have to close parts of the M-way network for exercises....:sad:

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Now, if only I could get a host for the shot I have of a Jag doing trials off the M55 many years ago...

[sir]

Here's a pic :
http://www.iht.org/motorway/jaguar.jpg

[BossEyed]

Here you go:

http://www.iht.org/motorway/jaguar.jpg

Shortly before the M55 was due for completion, arrangements were made in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence, and the British Aircraft Corporation, for a Jaguar G R Mark 1 aircraft, from the Warton (Lancashire) Aerodrome, to land on the afternoon of Saturday, 26 April, 1975, on the road base of a section of carriageway near Weeton. After fitting four of the RAF's latest cluster bombs on the plane, it then took off from the motorway. The purpose was to demonstrate the Jaguar's ability to land and take off in short distances.

The motorway was opened to traffic in July 1975.

{Edit: sir is quicker on the Google than me!}

(That's not the shot I remember from the time, which was a B&W shot taken from ground level as a front 3/4 view on rotation)

[GeeRam]

The question was about regular use not one off publicity stunts on a stretch of unopened Mway as in the Jag case......:hmm:
Perhaps I should have said except for the incidence with the Jag....was it really that long ago.......:ooh: from memory I would have guessed it was early '80's sometime.

[Green Meat]

I seem to remember a piece somewhere about data links, the Draken and the Viggen having one of the most sophisticated around at the time (I know this was metioned earlier). The data was actually displayed via hidden readouts in the gauges so that anyone looking in the cockpit would still be none the wiser.

Taking issue with the 'if you need the extra 20%, buy the Typhoon', would the Gripen not be a suitable swing-role Jag replacement? Although there were mutterings about standardising on one swing-role type, that just doesn't seem to be happening in any case.

Buy some Gripens off-the-shelf for the UKADZ (my terminology may be a bit out of date now!) and deploy Typhoons OOA? Oh, and Gripens are a joint SAAB/BAE Systems product and in service!

Ducks for incoming...

Edited for poor spelling. Vigeen, indeed!

[mike rondot]

Saab didn't forget, they got it exactly right for the theatre and perceived threat. The Viggen goes a long way, very fast, with a big weapon load. It was the sales teams of the competition who spread the rumour that it was a short range artillery aircraft. Saab provided the ground attack variant with a full range of forward-firing weapons and the recce variant with a sensor suite that was light years ahead of any other tactical system. The JA-37 weapons/radar/data link suite was operational in 1984; has it been bettered?
Charlie-55 . With reference to the Gripen, bear in mind that it is available now as a credible system. Other aircraft beat it hands down on paper, but do they work?
Ali Barber, we need to talk, preferably with a case of cold Makol to compare notes about this fantastic aircraft...

[chevvron]

If you want to use motorways, you have to go to Cyprus; I've seen at least 3 'convertible' sections there, all about 2000m with parking areas, road signs on hinges, removable crash barriers between carriageways etc

[BEagle]

Would that be Turkish-occupied North Cyprus? Or the southern part of the island?

[clicker]

...and taxiing at speeds that I think would be considered mad here....

Wonder if it was similar to the Draken in that respect? Remember seeing some Drakens at Waddo that were going so fast you could see the wingtip almost hit the grouind as it turned the corners. When I spoke to one of the pilots later he said it was because the electrics would overheat if not kept cool and taxing fast was the only way to do that if a long taxi was expected.

clicker

[Big Bear]

Would that be Turkish-occupied North Cyprus? Or the southern part of the island?

There is at least one that I have seen in the south on the Larnaca to Limasol motorway.

Bear

[chevvron]

Two on the Limmasol - Nicosia section and one on the Limmasol - Larnaca section; they're easily spottable; course there might be more in the north but I've never been there.
I only spotted them because I was driving to Nicosia with a 'local' friend and he kept asking 'could you land an F16 here?'; then I saw why he was asking!

[Gainesy]

Little-known fact: that Jag on the M55 eventually got airborne passing Knutsford services on the M6 southbound.:E

Big section of runway/road, complete with RHAGs, just outside Ramstein AB BTW.