Gripen secures a long-term future as Sweden approves upgrade programme

By Robert Hewson

December 01, 2007

The Swedish government and industry have launched the two-phase programme that will underwrite the continued development of the Gripen fighter to 2040 and beyond.

The deal also provides for a crucial near-term upgrade to the Swedish Air Force's (SAF's) Gripen force that will see it stabilise at a unified '100-jet fleet'.

The new project, valued at SEK3.9 billion (USD611 million), had been awaiting formal Swedish parliamentary approval for several months, but it was formally authorised as part of the wider national defence budget and a final contract was signed on 17 October.

Saab says that SEK3 billion of the SEK3.9 billion total is new business. Of the remainder, SEK600 million is funding previously allocated to the Neuron unmanned combat aerial vehicle development programme that has cross-over technology applications with Gripen and SEK300 million is for previously agreed and recently conducted studies concerning the Swedish JAS 39C/D version of Gripen.

Within the overall contract, the split in funding between the Gripen technology demonstrator programme and the SAF upgrade has not been revealed.

The former programme is the main element of the new contract. The 'Demo' plan, as it is curríently known, will develop a set of capability enhancements and future technologies to be applied to an evolving 'Super Gripen' design over the next decade. Work on such an aircraft has been under way for some time, driven initially by the demands of the Norwegian and Danish future fighter requirements and also India's Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft programme.

'Demo' details

Only limited details of the Demo programme have been revealed: Saab will rebuild an existing Swedish two-seat JAS 39B and re-engine it with a General Electric F414G turbofan (adapted jointly with Volvo Aero for single-engine use); another key item of new equipment will be an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, with several candidate systems now under evaluation.

Joakim Wallin, deputy head of the Tactical Aircraft Office at the Sweíídish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), tells Jane's that the Demo programme "supports the long-term planning needed to sustain the Gripen in Swedish service to 2040, and the requirements of new customers. It concentrates on improvements to aircraft range and load-carrying capability, new weapons, enhanced sensors, avionics and communications systems".

On the key question of AESA radar, Wallin notes that Sweden now follows a procurement strategy whereby the country is "no longer doing everything itself. When it comes to subsystems we want as much off-the-shelf equipment as possible, but fully supported out to 2040".

He continues: "Sweden is assíessing what's on the market and what is on the development 'track'. When the demonstrator flies with an AESA fitted in 2010 or 2011, it will still not have the full range of AESA capabilities. Today these radars are still just radars, but in the future they will be doing communications and electronic warfare.

"If an enhanced version of Gripen is needed on the interínational market by 2020 then we have another five years to make those technology decisions," Wallin concludes.

The Demo aircraft is scheduled to make its maiden flight in 2008; as well as a new engine its modified airframe will feature new landing gear, fuel tanks and stores pylons. Additional systems will be incorporíated from 2009, including AESA radar and defensive aids, but the details have still to be finalised.

The flight-test programme will run to 2011 but the outcome of the Norwegian and Danish campaigns will have some bearing on that, and a win in either country would accelerate the Demo timescale. Norway is already supporting Gripen technology development with a two-year NOK150 million (USD25 million) investment funding work on weapon systems, ammunition, logistics and data systems.

Planning target

By 2011, says Wallin, the Swedish government will have sufficient data to plan for a 2015 upgrade to sustain the Gripen in SAF service to at least 2040. "2040 is our current [in service] planning estimate," he says, "and the goal of the Demo programme is to support that."

The less-publicised part of the Gripen contract funds the conversion of 31 early-model JAS 39A/B aircraft to the latest JAS 39C/D standard for the SAF. Sweden will standardise on the C/D model and the remaining A/Bs will be withdrawn from service by about 2012. Of the 31 onversions, 18 will be JAS 39Cs and 13 will be JAS 39D two-seaters. The rebuild programme will run between 2007 and 2012.

When the plan was drawn up, the projected final fleet was set at 75 JAS 39Cs and 25 JAS 39Ds. This initial total included a JAS 39C (39259) that crashed at Vidsel in Sweden in April 2007. Bizarrely, no provision has been made to replace this aircraft, so Sweden's fleet will actually comprise 99 Gripens.

This is a considerable reduction from the original Gripen procurement of 204 aircraft, all of which have been paid for and will be delivered. The SAF has about 160 Gripens in service today and the last aircraft from the final batch of 64 (Batch 3, contracted in June 1997) will be handed over around August 2008.

Of the 204 deliveries, 14 C/D aircraft have been handed over to the Czech Air Force, while 16 A/Bs were used in the rebuild of 14 C/Ds for Hungary. Including the operíational losses (since 1993), plus other adjustments to the SAF fleet, the withdrawal of the JAS 39 A/B Gripens means that 52 JAS 39A and 13 JAS 39B aircraft will become surplus to requirements.

SWEDISH AESA RADAR UNDERTAKES FIRST FLIGHT TRIALS Saab (formerly Ericsson) Microwave Systems reports that it undertook the first flight trials of a new demonstrator radar for Gripen in September 2007. The tests, performed from a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport aircraft with the radar mounted backwards on the loading ramp, generated data that the company describes as "world-unique". The active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar is a new development, building on technology from the current PS-05/A radar of the Gripen. Known within the company as NORA III (derived from the phrase 'Not Only a RAdar'), the new radar uses a Saab-specified AESA antenna consisting of approximately 1,000 elements built by Raytheon. "As far as we know, this is the first data collection from a fighter radar using multi-channel AESA technology [that] simultaneously has one receiver channel per sub-aperture," says Jonas Branzell, programme manager for airborne radar at Saab Microwave Systems. "The data received is irreplaceable with regard to development of the radars of the future and their signal-processing algorithms." During earlier ground tests, several Gripens were used as radar targets. In addition, both airborne- and land-based jamming were tested. According to Saab, the trials gave good results in the following modes: long-range target detection and tracking; search and track in highly manoeuvrable multi-target scenarios; rapid track initiation/alert; passive detection; and multiple jammer suppression. Saab says these flight trials have demonstrated that an AESA radar, using one channel per sub-aperture, gives better sidelobe suppression than a monopulse system. According to the company, its radar detects targets in more directions and at lower speeds than any earlier known AESA radar. Saab also maintains that ground clutter problems have been reduced in this new system: an ordinary AESA only uses distance and speed to separate targets from clutter, but tests with a multi-channel AESA, using spatially separated sub-apertures in two dimensions (elevation and azimuth), are claimed to give better ground clutter suppression. The radar flight trials were originally intended to use a Viggen fighter as the platform but, following the latter's withdrawal from service, the C-130 Hercules was selected. According to Saab's Branzell, this had only a minor impact on the test results. "The radar being directed backwards had no impact on the clutter tests. It is only a mirror compared to the normal case," he says. Branzell adds that the test made use of different waveforms, pulse frequencies and tapers, in part to compensate for the lower speed range of the C-130. Olle Nygårds

JAS 39 GRIPEN - SWEDISH PRODUCTION FIGURES Lot 01: 5 Prototypes (A/c 39-1 W/O 1988, rest withdrawn) Batch 1 Lot 11: 19 JAS 39A (JAS 39A - 39102 W/O 1993) Batch 1 Lot 12: 10 JAS 39A Batch 2 Lot 21: 10 JAS 39A, 1 JAS 39B Batch 2 Lot 22: 18 JAS 39A, 2 JAS 39B (JAS 39A - 39156 W/O 1999) Batch 2 Lot 23: 18 JAS 39A, 2 JAS 39B Batch 2 Lot 24: 16 JAS 39A, 3 JAS 39B (JAS 39A - 39184 W/O 2005) Batch 2 Lot 25: 14 JAS 39A, 7 JAS 39B Batch 2 Lot 26: 20 JAS39C Batch 3 Lot 27: 7 JAS39C, 3 JAS39D Batch 3 Lot 27: 5 JAS39C (To Czech Republic) Batch 3 Lot 28: 7 JAS39C, 2 JAS39D (To Czech Republic) Batch 3 Lot 28: 3 JAS39C, 1 JAS39D Batch 3 Lot 29: 15 JAS39C, 8 JAS39D (JAS 39C - 39259 W/O 2007) Batch 3 Lot 29: (4) JAS39C, (2) JAS39D (Reworked from Lot 11 for Hungary) Batch 3 Lot 30: 13 JAS39C Batch 3 Lot 30: (8) JAS39C (Reworked from Lot 11 for Hungary) Totals: 5 Prototypes, 105 JAS 39A, 15 JAS39B, 70 JAS39C, 14 JAS39D Grand total: 209 Figures do not include production for South Africa)