The J-29 and J-32 were well regarded in the aviation world and stood as testament that Saab were capable of designing jet fighter aircraft which could match the capabilities of designs produced by larger, better known names in aviation. The company’s first jet fighter designed as such from the ground up, the J-29 Tunnan, entered Swedish air force service in 1950 and was followed in 1956 by the J-32 Lansen. Before the 1940s were finished, the company had developed the J-21R jet fighter from its J-21 piston powered fighter. Saab was not unknown in jet fighter development prior to the J-35 Draken. Not only was the overall design a modern and unexpected departure from aircraft design norms of the period, the source of the aircraft was also something of a shock that a relatively small company on the aviation landscape from a politically neutral nation would present the world with an all weather fighter capable of speeds exeding twice the speed of sound was unexpected indeed. When Saab’s J-35 Draken (Dragon) entered Swedish air force service in 1960 after a rigorous design and development period, it caused a stir in the aviation world at large. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.SK-35C Draken of the Swedish Air Force Historic Flight seen at Zeltweg, Austria in 2022. Not too bad for an initially experimental aircraft.Ĭaleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. Though the Saab 35 was replaced by the more capable Saab 37 Viggen (which also used a modified delta wing design), the Saab 35 Draken was in use in some capacity until the mid-2000s-a run of about fifty years. Since Austria was restricted from using air-to-air missiles by the Austrian State Treaty, they outfitted their Saabs with internal cannons for air-to-air combat. Austria too acquired several dozen unique Saab 35s. The United States used twelve formerly Danish Saab 35s as training aircraft until 2009. The Saab enjoyed success outside Sweden and was exported to some of Sweden’s neighboring countries-Finland and Denmark. The fighter could fly at Mach 2 and housed one or two 30 millimeter internal cannons (depending on the variant) in addition to air-to-air missiles. The Saab 35 was quite capable both for its era and considering it was a single-engine jet. Though not always applicable to combat scenarios, the Cobra Maneuver is nonetheless an indicator of high maneuverability, and demonstrated the Saab 35’s capabilities. While a pilot faces the sky, they momentarily turn the airframe into an enormous airbrake and so rapidly slow down the airplane. In the early 1960s, Swedish Saab pilots preformed the Cobra Maneuver, a technically challenging aerobatic display in which a rapid lift of the nose causes an airplane to fly forward perpendicular to the ground. In fact, the double delta was extremely capable. In 1952, the Saab 210 flew over Stockholm to mark the 700 year anniversary of the city’s founding. Saab engineers needed double delta data in real life, and in 1952 built a small test aircraft, the Saab 210 to do so-essentially a scaled-down, but flyable, double delta wing design. To be a test pilot was particularly perilous and required nerves of steel. While mockups were useful for proof-of-concept experiments, live flight tests would provide valuable real-world insights. Air Force Test Pilot School tested America’s jet prototypes, Saab too needed to test unproven airplane technology. Just as test pilots like Chuck Yeager of the U.S. Engineers made extensive use of wind tunnel tests and small scale models to test the aerodynamic effects that new airframe features would have-and the Saab 35 Draken was no exception. Before computer-aided testing and flight simulation was available, testing new airplane designs was a slow and laborious undertaking. The double delta design appeared promising, but extensive testing was needed.
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