Originally Posted by
treadigraph
Brute force and ignorance then!
Not really - the engine needs subsonic airflow otherwise there is no brute force.
The redesign of the engine front-end for the Viggen was extensive and the intake design itself is far from simple and took a crazy amount of design and testing to work over such a broad mach range. Only from more unusual angles or close-up viewing do some of the unique details reveal themselves:
It was a remarkable and arguably unique aircraft.