In an era of multi-national sixth-generation combat aircraft programmes and the F-35’s unbroken run of success in recent Europea fighter competitions, Saab and its flagship Gripen seem to have fallen by the wayside. Can the veteran Swedish player continue to go it alone, or is it (and its domestic air force customer) better served by forging new partnerships?

Dassault has long been the poster child for independent fast jet design and development. Continuing a long tradition of French national focus amid mixed relationships with allies, the company has worked primarily for domestic air arms and shaped its products accordingly... Continues below

This analysis article originally appeared in November’s Decisive Edge Air Newsletter.

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There are both benefits and hazards in this: government must believe the economic impact of a domestic supply chain offsets footing the entire development and production bill, but the freedom to prioritise national capability and maintain an independent export policy can be worth the lack of collective support.

France has one of several national industries that can (in theory) independently take a combat aircraft from first drawings to operational service. Turkey and South Korea are the latest examples, but theoretically Brazil, Israel, Italy, Japan and the UK could undertake 90% of the necessary work, with a few elements borrowed from friendly suppliers.

Politically and industrially, it would make little sense for these nations, but from a capability perspective they have either shown that they can, or are prepared to, take up the challenge. One participant usually forgotten in this field is Sweden and its veteran design house Saab.

Saab has developed and successfully exported several high-quality combat aircraft. Sweden’s sense of defence independence has not been dissimilar to France’s, although perhaps with a less fragile sense of national superiority.

Stockholm also steered a more pragmatic course in using third-party systems such as engines, whether licence-produced or off-the-shelf, and integrating non-domestic equipment. But airframe design, development and key systems were kept in-house.

Despite a relatively captive domestic market, the last few decades have not been kind to Saab’s combat aircraft division. Though the Gripen is a NATO-standard fighter using subsystems from allied countries and punching above its weight in capability, it has been caught between the proven F-16, the behemoth that is the F-35 and France’s recent aggressive marketing of Dassault’s Rafale.

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By comparison, Sweden’s conservative outlook and lower defence profile have counted strongly against it. The new E/F Gripen variant, effectively a completely new aircraft akin to the Super Hornet, has struggled. Low operating cost, high availability and ease of support (the jet is actually capable of operating from forest clearings, as opposed to being photographed in them) has been outweighed by others’ brand recognition and political influence.

It’s not all bad news though. The 2012 Gripen E/F selection by Brazil and attendant Embraer industrial partnership was a major success, and an increase in the order from 36 to 44 examples is a positive signal. Colombia and the Philippines have also shown interest, likely aided by complicated US relations given reactions to the situation in Gaza and now Trump’s election. Cautious as Sweden might be, it is seen as dependable.

Saab’s partnership with Boeing on the USAF T-7 lead-in fighter trainer (at present admittedly a mixed blessing) provides the company with support beyond its medium-weight category, while sales of its GlobalEye airborne early warning (AEW) platform, most recently to the UAE, are further proof it can interest major purchasers.

But for all its inherent strengths, can Saab sustain high-end design and development of a Gripen successor? This is a multi-layered issue where Sweden departs from France, which will likely defend defence independence to its dying breath. Stockholm’s attitude is closer to Germany’s, balancing pragmatic support of local industry with cost-effective allied partnerships.

Combat aircraft are expensive and procured in increasingly small numbers, while new generations of UCAVs might reduce crewed platforms to a management role. Competitors from Asia-Pacific are gaining momentum in the same the market space.

Looking elsewhere, Israel, acknowledged as the home of very capable defence products, abandoned crewed platform development to focus on UAS, missiles and other subsystems. This has not inflicted any noticeable damage on its defence industrial capability and export orders keep rolling in.

Returning to Saab, what happens after Gripen E/F? If Brazil and Sweden procure 100-plus examples overall, it is an economically viable aircraft. That plus wider Saab sales of systems such as the Arexis electronic warfare (EW) suite and GlobalEye radar should keep the company relevant in the air defence space – and that’s not to mention its anti-armour weapons (the now-famous NLAW) and submarine programmes among others.

But a pessimistic answer is that the market has become more crowded, and Saab’s potential has shrunk. The reverse of this though is that, if South Korea and Turkey can evolve domestic programmes then Sweden – with far greater experience – should also be able to.

Nevertheless, Saab – and the Swedish government – are faced with a choice between independent development or joining a multinational programme. As Seoul and Ankara have proven, it is still possible to both acquire an American export and evolve a domestic product. What is vital here is the national (read political) will to do so.

In reality, Sweden’s F-35 participation could be a catastrophic mistake: Israel aside, no partner has access or input to many fundamentals of the aircraft’s systems, there is no room left for high-end involvement, and Sweden would not be allowed a bespoke domestic variant.

Unless a Gripen successor were also planned, Saab would be at the end of the line regarding useful sustainment of its combat aircraft heritage. It should also be mindful of the KAI situation: with Lockheed Martin having assisted Korea on domestic aircraft programmes, Seoul is under (slightly vague) restrictions as to where it can or cannot compete. A Saab involved in F-35 work would almost certainly experience something similar.

There is an arguably better alternative. The Anglo-Italian-Japanese Tempest/GCAP effort appears currently to be riding high. The new UK Labour government, despite rumours of spending cuts, has confirmed significant funding and hence participation, while Rome and Tokyo also both seem bullish. Sweden has been tenuously linked with this sixth-generation effort, but never made its intentions entirely clear. Now might be the time to go all-in.

There are of course arguments against this GCAP route, the primary one being that Sweden has always been a single-engine fast jet operator based on a low-footprint, rapid-turnaround, dispersed operations doctrine. Tempest will likely be large and twin-engined with an emphasis on a low radar cross-section, brute performance, range and payload alongside high-end networked sensors.

Such a platform is not what Saab would choose to develop itself, but for GCAP to achieve these goals it needs new form and fabrication technologies, next-generation onboard systems and – perhaps most crucially – a new engine. These all elements that Saab would also require for any Gripen replacement.

Collaborating with current GCAP partners thus opens the door to using certain technologies for an alternative (likely smaller) platform while sharing cost and risk. Much of Gripen is actually made in the UK, and Saab collaborates closely with Italy’s Leonardo, so cooperation at political or industrial level would not be a new direction. A ‘JAS-49’ from Saab would also not be a direct sales competitor to GCAP and might be interesting as part of a joint high-low mix export offering.

There are other benefits (economies of scale, joint support, software development, a UCAV offshoot), but these would all be some way in the future. The core consideration is that, unlike a US-led programme where Washington would be dominant (and restrictive), a Euro-Japanese effort would prove more receptive to Sweden as a participant and more open to differing use of the work outputs. It would certainly be no worse than joining F-35 at this late stage, an option that would likely kill an independent Swedish combat aircraft design capability.

Complex programmes always suffer problems (F-35 itself is the current most resounding example). The Saab/Boeing T-7 is not proceeding according to plan, while Embraer is still working-up to domestic Gripen E/F production. But as a technology partner on GCAP, Saab may well find it has room to continue its own programmes while benefitting from wider and relatively like-minded support. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but of all the possible futures for the company, this one deserves very serious consideration.

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