UK throws weight behind Saab's Gripen bid to win F-X2 contest

The UK government is pushing the Saab JAS 39 Gripen NG to win Brazil's F-X2 competition to provide the country's air force (Força Aérea Brasileira - FAB) with 36 next-generation fighter aircraft.

Speaking in London on 4 November, Tony Ogilvy, Vice-President, International Marketing for Gripen, said that the UK government decided to throw its weight behind the Swedish company's bid when the Selex Galileo active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which is being developed in Edinburgh, Scotland, was chosen for the new platform.

With Selex providing the radar, the UK will be responsible for producing 25 per cent of every Gripen sold to Brazil, Ogilvy said. He added that with France and the US offering wholly indigenous products (with the Dassault Rafale and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet respectively), the Gripen NG is essentially a Swedish/UK hybrid.

Sweden and the UK have no real history in Latin America, which Ogilvy claimed is seen as an advantage by the Brazilian government.

He also said there would be no technology export approval problems despite having two countries in the mix. "We have no approval issues whatsoever with any of the component parts that we have looked at. It is not an issue," he said.

With regard to the Gripen NG's AESA radar, Air Marshal Nigel Maddox of the UK Royal Air Force (RAF) said that the UK will have an E-Scan requirement for its Eurofighter Typhoon force at some point in the future and that "any programme that de-risks the UK radar has to be fantastic".

"It's win win," he added.