Saab Gripen E/F (Gripen NG)

According to reports from Sweden's radio newsroom, Colombia has committed to buying 24 JAS Gripen from Saab, which are believed to be 22 Gripen E and two Gripen F two-seat combat-ready training planes. Saab is also said to have proposed a technology partnership involving local collaborations with Colombian institutions, promising long-term economic benefits for the country.
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Previously, Colombia had considered buying 16 Rafale jets from France's Dassault Aviation, but a lack of funding halted the project. Saab's Gripen E emerged as a profitable alternative.
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https://www.flygtorget.se/Aktuellt/Artikel/?Id=16079
 
Colombia was crisscrossed by Russian Tu-160 departing Venezuela west bound for example, without being able to intercept any of them (their Kfir couldn't catch any due to their poor reliability).
Venezuela is not just a rhetorical bad boy.

Columbia has also a group of strategic islands in the heart of the Gulf of Mexico that needs reliable aircraft with range over water (tankage and modern engine) to be defended.

The Gripen is a good choice. Especially if they got some kind of favorable trade with Sweden...

And potentially for the Swede, that could well be an unlimited source of (at last!) good coffee for their fika.
 
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Megaprojects put out this video today about the JAS-39:


Sweden's JAS 39 Gripen redefines modern air power. From its groundbreaking design to unmatched versatility, discover how this masterpiece of engineering excels as the ultimate non-stealth fighter jet.
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Columbia denies rumor of US holding on licenses or allegations of Corruption for Engines and airframe etc...

https://omni.se/minister-fornekar-mutor-fran-saab-det-ar-falskt/a/yEnrWJ
Pedro Sánchez also denies allegations of corruption, where the United States, according to several media outlets, has threatened legal action against Colombia.

– It is false that Saab bribed us to sell Gripen planes. It is more likely that Hitler lives here in Colombia than that one of these companies manages to bribe us, Sánchez tells the radio.
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I'd be very surprised if SAAB did bribe the Columbian government as Swedish companies are generally speaking have strong ethics (The same can't be said for US aerospace companies).
 
NMaude said:
I'd be very surprised if SAAB did bribe the Columbian government as Swedish companies are generally speaking have strong ethics (The same can't be said for US aerospace companies).
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Can you give examples of this, recent examples (I.e. not the Lockheed F-104 bribery scandal, etc.?) U.S. aerospace companies are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) which is enforced and prosecuted quite firmly by the U.S. SEC and DOJ.
 
HaveVoid said:
U.S. aerospace companies are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) which is enforced and prosecuted quite firmly by the U.S. SEC and DOJ.
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Boeing comes to mind as a US company likely to got up to shady things given how poorly it has been performing in recent years and as for the FCPA didn't Trump recently issue an EO rescinding it?

Edit: If you want to look at blatant, shameless corruption of by a US aerospace giant look no further than SpaceX (Along with Tesla) and the antics of its CEO Elon Musk.
 
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HaveVoid said:
Can you give examples of this, recent examples (I.e. not the Lockheed F-104 bribery scandal, etc.?) U.S. aerospace companies are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) which is enforced and prosecuted quite firmly by the U.S. SEC and DOJ.
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Exxon in Guyana, their oil deal is extremely favorable to Exxon, and all the Guyanese politicians involved suddenly obtained mansions in Dubai.
 
NMaude said:
I'd be very surprised if SAAB did bribe the Columbian government as Swedish companies are generally speaking have strong ethics (The same can't be said for US aerospace companies).
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Most of the scandals associated with the Gripen, and there definitely are, have been associated with the partners of Saab, ie BAE who have a pretty scratchy record of bribery and corruption and arms deals to the Middle East. A few examples are the South African deal where both Saab and BAE are implicated, Brazil which most know here and while there haven't been any convictions there is a strong scent, as well as in Thailand where I heard a number of off the record allegations.

I agree with HaveVoid, the US companies are generally over regulated in these instances. No one is immune and the Boeing tanker issues are a good example, Darleen Druyen, but that was more a case of one crooked civil servant. The vast majority of US military systems sold overseas have to go through FMS and so the oversight is weighty and the opportunity for scandal and bribery generally very low.
 
NMaude said:
Boeing comes to mind as a US company likely to got up to shady things given how poorly it has been performing in recent years and as for the FCPA didn't Trump recently issue an EO rescinding it?
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Can't EO a law, that's not how that works. No matter how much any president may want to.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Can't EO a law, that's not how that works.
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I know that.

Scott Kenny said:
No matter how much any president may want to.
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Unfortunately Trump doesn't think so especially light of the fact he has NEVER faced any serious consequences for crimes and misdeeds along a corrupt SCOTUS backing him.
 
OMG the great knee cap shooting war has started again among the European defense industry. All irrelevant variables but performances and efficiency are brought up to partake the whole of the honey pot...
Meanwhile, European NATO troops stoically retrain themselves to dig extensive lines of trenches with the good old cheap shovel.
 
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Indeed, just two years ago Sweden forgave their neutral status. Something changing in US clearly wasn't high on their agenda.
 
F414, M88 and EJ200 are the same niche and generation turbofans, even if the M88 is the least powerful of the lot. A Gripen with an EJ200 would make a lot of sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurojet_EJ200#Variants
I use to say that the F-18 and its F404 paved the way to Typhoon and Rafale. They proved twin engine fighters could be smaller and less expensive than F-15 size beasts, like Mirage 4000.
 
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Are you out of your mind? Saab never had the desire to get out of foreign tech for their modern fighters. As you perfectly know, It was part of the design philosophy of the Viggen and Gripen.
Are we rewriting history here because of €800b?!
 
Scott Kenny said:
Getting out of ITAR would have been worth the development costs at SAAB, IMO.
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Absolutely impossible. You'd need whole of Sweden just for that.

France (which at great expense kept uninterrupted industrial development since ancien regime) isn't really out, as US decide where and when SCALPs fly. Expecting Sweden (which didn't even think as recently as two years ago that there are incoming elections in US) to "clean out" Gripen to the last bolt is absolutely surreal.
 
Yep, the devil is always in the details... and ITAR in the smaller sub-components. Only North Korea escapes ITAR, probably.
which at great expense kept uninterrupted industrial development since ancien regime
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That's a little exagerating, me thinks. The Aéronavale had a long lasting love affair with Vought, all the way from 1939 (V-156F) to 1972 (almost A-7E).
 
Regarding the EJ-200 idea - I read at the time that the EJ-200 wasn't developed with single engine reliability in mind and therefore wasn't suitable for a single engine plane.
 
Lordarpad said:
Regarding the EJ-200 idea - I read at the time that the EJ-200 wasn't developed with single engine reliability in mind and therefore wasn't suitable for a single engine plane.
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The F404 has had mods for single engine use too. This is why the RM12, -102, -103, -104 and IN20 versions exist.
 
Lordarpad said:
Regarding the EJ-200 idea - I read at the time that the EJ-200 wasn't developed with single engine reliability in mind and therefore wasn't suitable for a single engine plane.
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I've read that as well, which makes me darkly suspicious that there are matters aside from gearbox placement.

In any event, the EJ-200 is a multinational product, requiring multiple approvals instead of just one. Asking zee Germans might be problematic for some countries than getting US State Department approval. Moreover, why supply an engine to a cheaper Eurofighter competitor?

Then there's the issue of relative performance. The 90kn EJ-200 is closer in thrust to the 85kn F404-IN20 than to the 98kn F414. Initial procurement and support costs are likely much higher for the EJ-200 as well. Possibly higher airframe attrition as well? Overall, I could make a better export argument for the Indian Tejas 1A with the F404-IN20 than for a Gripen E that has regressed to the EJ-200.
 
TinWing said:
I've read that as well, which makes me darkly suspicious that there are matters aside from gearbox placement.

In any event, the EJ-200 is a multinational product, requiring multiple approvals instead of just one. Asking zee Germans might be problematic for some countries than getting US State Department approval. Moreover, why supply an engine to a cheaper Eurofighter competitor?
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Because the ones who chose EJ-200 in Gripen are either Gripen user or some countries who wouldn't choose EF anyway.
TinWing said:
Then there's the issue of relative performance. The 90kn EJ-200 is closer in thrust to the 85kn F404-IN20 than to the 98kn F414. Initial procurement and support costs are likely much higher for the EJ-200 as well. Possibly higher airframe attrition as well? Overall, I could make a better export argument for the Indian Tejas 1A with the F404-IN20 than for a Gripen E that has regressed to the EJ-200.
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But then again EJ-200 gives higher dry thrust, slightly smaller SPFC and lighter. In the end its performance is better in the most used way which i would say is more important anyway
 
Lordarpad said:
Regarding the EJ-200 idea - I read at the time that the EJ-200 wasn't developed with single engine reliability in mind and therefore wasn't suitable for a single engine plane.
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The Germans were pretty serious about redesigning Eurofighter as a single EJ-200 aircraft when Volker Ruhe was running the Bundesministerium der Verteidigung.

And if EJ-200 wasn't as reliable as other engines I rather think we'd have seen something in the operability stats by now.
 
TinWing said:
Moreover, why supply an engine to a cheaper Eurofighter competitor?
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Different consortia. Eurofighter Gmbh might have a reason not to undercut Eurofighter sales, Eurojet Turbo Gmbh would be very interested in additional EJ-200 sales.

Eurofighter: BAE Systems, Airbus (x2), Leonardo
Eurojet: RR, MTU, Avio, ITP
 
TomcatViP said:
Are you out of your mind? Saab never had the desire to get out of foreign tech for their modern fighters. As you perfectly know, It was part of the design philosophy of the Viggen and Gripen.
Are we rewriting history here because of €800b?!
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The pain meds do have me pretty well stoned out of my gourd, but I am serious.

Nobody wants to go through the efforts of pitching a plane to a country just to have the US block the sale at the last minute due to ITAR.


Nicolas10 said:
It would be subject to ITAR for pretty much everything else so what's the point?
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What else comes from the US?

IIRC the radar and combat systems were developed in Sweden.
Sweden has the industries to make the landing gear, and the hydraulic systems.
Ejection seat? Or is that a Martin-Baker (UK) seat?
 

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