Gripen Demonstrator – The Future has Arrived!(Swedish fighter)

Today in Linköping, Sweden, Saab and its powerful network of leading international aerospace partners, proudly unveiled the first of the next generation of combat fighters, the Gripen Demonstrator aircraft.

In an event attended by over 700 international guests which was broadcast ‘live’ around the world, the Gripen Demonstrator (Demo) aircraft was ‘rolled-out’ in a spectacular ceremony in front of the world’s media.

The Gripen Demonstrator programme is the pathfinder for a whole new generation of technologies and capabilities to ensure that Gripen remains at the leading edge of fighter aircraft performance and capability well beyond 2040. The programme includes the development of a new Gripen test flying platform - Gripen Demo - and the Gripen Avionics Rig. The Gripen Demo includes new features such as the General Electric F414G Turbofan engine with increased thrust, a new Saab/Thales active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar, increased fuel capacity for extended range, improved landing gear, increased weapons and stores capabilities, advanced communications and defensive systems and world-beating avionics structures.

“This is a landmark event for Saab and its international industrial partners and a significant moment in the future of fighter aircraft technology and performance. I am very proud of what we have achieved and am confident that this next generation of Gripen will be trail-blazing the skies for years to come”.

Gripen International Managing Director Johan Lehander, who leads the Gripen team responsible for marketing, selling and supporting the Gripen fighter worldwide, is confident that the Gripen Demo aircraft is the start of the Gripen story for the next 40 years.

“We are standing on the edge of a new era. The Gripen Demonstrator programme is not just the first step towards a new Gripen, it is driving the development of new technology for existing and potential Gripen customers. We have concentrated on the key strategic performance and capability areas. That includes the aircraft sensors, communications fit, weapons load, self-protection systems, range and engine performance. But we also need to build and deliver a system that remains affordable. In the coming years Gripen will find itself in a league of its own when it comes to costs, particularly long-term life cycle costs. We are already delivering systems and capabilities that our competitors still can only offer as promises. In the years to come Gripen will get even more advanced, even more sophisticated while staying every bit as affordable as it is now. We understand cost control”.

“We want everyone, the customers and the industrial team, to be proud to belong to this programme. We are a reliable supplier and we are an independent supplier. We always deliver what we promise – both in terms of the aircraft system and the entire spread of industrial co-operation and offset provision. You can be confident in Gripen for the next 40 years and be very secure in your relationship with Saab and with Sweden.”

Investment in the Demonstrator programme is being made by Saab and its international industrial partners, as well as potential future customers. In April 2007, Norway signed a Letter of Agreement regarding the future development of Gripen, valued at around USD 25 million, and in October 2007 the Swedish government also awarded a contract to Saab for the Demo programme. These decisions represent a significant national and international government investment and commitment to Gripen’s future.

General Electric together with Volvo Aero, Thales, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins, APPH, Martin-Baker, Terma and Meggit are just some of the world-leading aerospace companies that, together with Saab, are jointly investing in the Gripen Demonstrator programme. This combination of international corporate partnership and national and international commitment, through a jointly funded industry and government investment programme, is a very powerful testament to Gripen’s future.

Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions ranging from military defence to civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents and constantly develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers´ changing needs.

Gripen is the first of the new generation, multi-role combat aircraft to enter service. Using the latest available technology it is capable of performing an extensive range of air-to-air and air-to-surface operational missions and employing the latest weapons. Gripen is designed to meet the demands of current and future threats, while at the same time meeting strict requirements for flight safety, reliability, training efficiency and low operating costs.

Gripen is in service with the Swedish, Czech Republic and Hungarian Air Forces and has also been ordered by South Africa and Thailand. The UK Empire Test Pilots´ School (ETPS) is operating Gripen as its advanced fast jet training platform for test pilots worldwide. (ends)

Gripen Demo, a new flying development platform for current and future generations of Gripen, is unvealed today for the first time. One of the new features is a completely new radar, that Saab is developing in collaboration with the French company Thales.

“We have equipped this aircraft with a new stronger engine and a completely new modular avionics system. The aircraft will have a greater payload and a longer range. In addition, Saab, together with Thales, will develop a completely new type of radar. The development will mean that Gripen will be able to maintain its position at the cutting edge of development for the next 30 - 40 years. Gripen Demo will fly for the first time during 2008,” says Åke Svensson, CEO of Saab.

The flying test platform, Gripen Demo, will be used to introduce new technology and functions to Gripen. The new capabilities could be the basis for a totally new version and will be completely or partially integrated into current versions of Gripen.

The development of Gripen is done in collaboration with some of the world’s leading companies within the aircraft industry: General Electric, Volvo Aero, Rockwell Collins, Honeywell, APPH, Terma, Martin-Baker and Meggitt. The latest in the line is Thales, which means that two of the world’s leading radar developers are now collaborating to equip Gripen with the most advanced AESA radar technology (Active Electronically Scanned Array).

Today, Saab announces a collaboration with the French company Thales. Together they will develop a new advanced radar based on AESA technology for the Gripen demonstrator, which will be shown for the first time during the day.

“This is a major step in the development of radar and an important collaboration. An AESA radar (Active Electronically Scanned Array) opens a series of new possibilities and functions,” says Peter Andersson, product manager at Saab Microwave Systems.

As opposed to the mechanically controlled antenna currently used in the Gripen radar, which can only illuminate one area at a time, an AESA radar can search larger areas faster, follow more targets in parallel and permits the pilot to operate more flexibly.

The collaboration surrounding the AESA radar started last autumn. Saab Microwave Systems is responsible for the radar system and its capability. Thales contributes with the antenna and Saab Aerosystems is responsible for the integration in the aircraft.

Integration of the complete radar system will continue during 2008 and will be completed in the spring of 2009. The first test flights are planned during the summer of 2009 and thereafter Saab intends to display the system at different customer demonstrations.

That the collaboration is with Thales is explained by Peter Andersson as follows:

“At present Thales is developing an AESA within a French radar programme and, like Saab Microwave Systems, is one of the world leaders within the radar field. Together we can quickly develop a demo-product that can show the markets the advantages of AESA technology. The collaboration over the antenna is also cost effective and is in line with Saab’s overall strategy of finding industrial partners for Gripen.”

But Peter Andersson does not want to speculate whether the collaboration with Thales will continue with the development of AESA radar for the next generation Gripen:

“Our collaboration is for the Gripen demo. We will have to see what happens in the future.”

AESA technology is already in use in several of Saab’s products, such as the Erieye airborne early warning system, the short-range search and acquisition radar Hard, the surveillance radar system Giraffe AMB and the artillery locating radar Arthur.

Yeah, you’re probably right there :)
But you guys don’t know what even our first generation Gripen really is do you?

First of all it already incorporates what you Americans (Dude:) call ‘next generation’ Radar capabilities, It connect over many nodes so ‘stealth’ will be a rather complicated problem for those ‘sneaking in’. It’s small robust, can land where ever you have a straight road, loads a heavy punch. It’s not made for traveling over the Atlantic killing third world terrorists.

It’s made for defending a country, coming at you very quickly, using a superior radar letting of those missiles and then disappearing again. It will cost you dearly to attack a country using our kind of defense. We stopped ‘owning’ Europe in the sixteen hundreds somewhere, and we’re no fighters :) Although we too have had our ‘times’. But if you believe that it was only Danes that were Vikings you’re sadly misinformed. Didn’t you know that one of our Swedish subs sunk a US hangarship in a recent war game? Our subs, as our planes may be small but don’t misstake that for slight cappabilities.

“
1. The PS-05/A can operate in passive mode, as a sensitive receiver with high directional accuracy (due to its large antenna). Two PS-05/As can exchange information by datalink and locate the target by triangulation.

2. The datalink results in better tracking. Usually, three plots need to track a target in track-while-scan mode. The datalink allows the radars to share plots, not just tracks, so even if none of the aircraft in a formation gets enough plots on its own to track the target, they may do so collectively.

3. Each radar plot includes Doppler velocity, which provides the individual aircraft with range-rate data. However, this data on its own does not yield the velocity of the target. Using the TIDLS, two fighters can take simultaneous range-rate readings and thereby determine the targets track instantly, reducing the need for radar transmission.

4. In ECM applications, one fighter can search, while the wingman simultaneously focuses jamming on the same target, using the radar. This makes it very difficult for the target to intercept or jam the radar that is tracking him. Another anti-jamming technique is for all four radars to illuminate the same target simultaneously at different frequencies.

The Swedish AF is the pioneer of fighter-to-fighter data-link, and the JAS-39 is the first fighter with the NG fighter-to-fighter data-link. However, almost every NG fighter in the world (F/A-22, F/A-18E/F, F-35, EF-2000, Rafale, Su-30MKK/MKI, Su-27SM, Su-35/37, MIG-31) has equipped or will equip soon the same class of NG fighter-to-fighter data-link since then. The Gripen was the first fighter with this kind of revolutional innovation, but it is not unique now.

Will the NG fighter-to-fighter data-link help the fighters like JAS-39 catch the stealthy target at longer distance??? I think the answer is “Yes”, since even the stealthy fighter can’t make its RCS in every direction as small as its frontal RCS. If you combine the data from the different fighters, AWACS, ground-based air-defense radar and so on in different location with the help of NG data-link, you may catch out the stealthy target earlier then just use the radar of your fighter’s own, as an old saying goes: “The unite is the force”. “

” And a few words from the Hungarians, how they experienced the exercise Spring Flag in Italy 2007.

The Gripens flew as part of the hostile ‘Red Force’, largely conducting beyond visual range air battles with the ‘Blue Force’. Colonel Kilian recalls, “We flew 24 sorties over the two-week exercise, and we launched every day with our two planned Gripen Ds. We were the only participants to have a 100% operational record with the scheduled aircraft.”

“In Hungary we just don’t have large numbers of aircraft to train with, but in Spring Flag we faced COMAO (combined air operations) packages of 20, 25 or 30 aircraft. The training value for us was to work with that many aircraft on our radar – and even with our limited experience we could see that the Gripen radar is fantastic. We would see the others at long ranges, we could discriminate all the individual aircraft even in tight formations and using extended modes. The jamming had almost no effect on us – and that surprised a lot of people.”

“Other aircraft couldn’t see us – not on radar, not visually – and we had no jammers of our own with us. We got one Fox 2 kill on a F-16 who turned in between our two jets but never saw the second guy and it was a perfect shot.”

“Our weapons and tactics were limited by Red Force rules, and in an exercise like this the Red Force is always supposed to die, but even without our AMRAAMs and data links we got eight or 10 kills, including a Typhoon. Often we had no AWACS or radar support of any kind, just our regular onboard sensors – but flying like that, ‘free hunting’, we got three kills in one afternoon. It was a pretty good experience for our first time out.”

Views from South Africa..

“Gripen is pretty much as agile it can get. G onset rate at least 6 G/s (1-9 G in 1.2 s), the Gripen platform is designed with tactics in mind. Gripen fight not only with missiles and bullets but with information, superior situation awareness is the key in modern warfare..

Gripens flight computer is outstanding, and can make some worldclass calculations. Gripens Fedec are highly impressive, it even has a backup mechanical calculation system. something only a handfull of companies can manage.
The air craft also incorporate a very low radar profile making it hard to find. And it has a superior data link.
And in real tests against other aircrafts the radar has been found very hard to jam by other systems, meaning that it will work in practice, not only in theory. And those countrys using it have found it working in all weathers.

The radar is capable of detecting, locating, identifying and automatically tracking multiple targets in the upper and lower spheres, on the ground and sea or in the air, in all weather conditions. It can guide four air to air missiles (AMRAAM, MBDA Meteor) simultaneously at four different targets. “

The Czech Air Force had this to say after testing the first generation Gripen 2005.

“Sweden required hard discretion related to ALL Gripen abilities information, but rumors say Gripen pilots used to call fox 3 (AMRAAM engagement) farther away than viper guys. When reporters asked guys from AFB Caslav to compare our new birds with another, they answered “our fighters (model C block2) are the best HW currently available on the word market”.

And also

“Since 1 May we have flown over 570 missions in total [figures as of mid-October] and since 1 July when were went operational on the QRA mission we have flown over 300 missions. We are very busy and we’re flying every day. Every aircraft flies at least twice, each day. We have eight pilots at the moment and sometimes we have all eight flying – and it’s not unusual to have all 12 aircraft operational and available on the line. We have never lost a single operational mission due to a technical snag with the aircraft and every single QRA mission has gone ahead as planned.”

You need to be rather ‘nationalistically thickheaded’ not to understand what a nice packet the new Gripen NG will be. One of the things people love to lift up is this macho ‘battle testing’ :) Well, if you test yourself against ‘third world’ technology I don’t call it ‘battle testing’ maybe ‘endurance testing’ if it comes to that. Both are important aspects of a real War against a technological peer, but remember, Americans still haven’t ‘invaded’ any true technological peer, and, may I add, :) hopefully never will. As that as I see it would be the end of what we all trust in, democracy and a free society.

But don’t give me BS about Gripen please :)
http://www.gripen.com/en/GripenFighter/The+Future+is+Gripen+NG/GripenNG.htm

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