inaugural Voyage

Two-seater Gripen’s inaugural Voyage

The first flight of the two-seat Gripen took place on April 29, at the Saab Military Aircraft headquarters in Linkoping, Sweden. The flight lasted for 41 minutes and went according to plan. Its pilot was Saab Deputy Chief test pilot Clas Jensen with test pilot Ola Rignell in the rear seat.

The Gripen two-seater is a fully-opera tional multi-role aircraft. It will be used in the Swedish Air Force for tactical training and combat missions.

“The aircraft felt just the way we pilots want it. It flew like the single-seater. We are very pleased,” said Clas Jensen after the flight.

The two-seat variant is 65 centimetres longer than the single seat Gripen. Most changes are in the forward fuselage but electronics and computers remain the same.

Airframe changes, to make room for a second pilot, have been made to the cock pit and the environmental control system in the dorsal spine.

The Mauser BK 27 mm cannon is excluded for the same reason.

The environmental control system that provides avionics cooling, pressurisation, ventilation and temperature control has been boosted to support two pilots.

Completely designed with CAD-tech nology by a team of 250 engineers from the development and production depart ments the two-seater Gripen is an impres sive example of teamwork.

“Today’s flight was one of the most important milestones in the Gripen-pro gramme. We are proud to have completed the task on budget within the tight time frame that was agreed at the start of the programme in 1992,” says Hans Ahlinder, President of Industrigrupped JAS and Executive Vice-President of Saab.

The decision to develop a two-seat ver sion of the Gripen was made in 1992 when the Swedish government decided to pur

chase a second batch of 110 Gripen air craft, including 14 two-seaters. The first two seater production aircraft will be delivered to the Swedish Air Force in

1998. This variant will also be offered alongside the single-seater in export mar kets. ■