What makes the GRIPEN E so darn good?

[Music] yeah buying Sweden's new grip and E fighter will run you more than buying a new F-35 but if you ask me the gri and E is still the best bang for your buck fighter in the world today even if the F-35 is the better Jet and I'll explain why picking up a new Runway Queen f-35a today will run you between 802 and $83 million whereas buying a new grip and E will run you about 85 but while the gri and E does come with the steeper sticker price it also comes with a significantly lower operating cost and a design philosophy that allows for extremely efficient use of these Fighters so let's take a minute to talk about what makes the grian E so special because if you just look at its performance specs on a sheet of paper next to other fourth and fifth generation Fighters it doesn't necessarily stand out from the crowd it's not the fastest or the most powerful the most aerobatic or the most technologically advanced fighter on the market but what it is as a broadly capable aircraft that was purpose-built for the exacting needs of the Swedish military which it's important to understand represents a very different developmental environment than American jets like the F16 or the F-35 American fighter designs after all benefit from decades worth of massive defense expenditures compounding year-over-year not to mention the largest and most robust support infrastructure in military history Sweden does not have those same advantages but had the very same concerns about a very aggressive Russia except for Sweden that aggressor was parked right across the Baltic Sea Sweden started its preliminary design work for the grippin back in 1979 and it first took flight in 1988 placing its development cycle sort of square in the middle of America's transition from high-powered fourth generation hot rods to stealthy sensor fusing low observable aircraft like the F22 and F35 and to some extent the griin design sort of reflects this changing philosophy its deltawing design does allow for a fairly small radar return while it's overall small size and weight allow for pretty respectable performance initially the aircraft was intended to serve as either a multi-roll or swing roll platform the difference being that a multi-roll aircraft could fly air superiority and ATT missions in the same sorty whereas a swing roll aircraft would need to land and be rearmed to switch from one job to the other and the grip a that was ultimately produced was not without its own issues and headaches there were a number of setbacks including crashes along the way and by the time the grip and SE emerged it had matured into one of the most broadly capable multi-roll fighters on the planet in fact back in 2006 when Sweden and their grippin participated in their first ever red flag large- scale air combat exercise over the United States grippin emerged from their first day of exercises with 10 wins and zero losses in another red flag exercise held over Alaska One grippin Pilot ultimately took down five separate f-16s and in the loyal Arrow exercises held in Sweden a single grippin pilot at one point took down two F-15 C's and left a third one scrambling out of there now that's not to say that the grippin will always come out on top against the F-16 or especially the F-15 but it's important to note that the griin can stand and swing with the best of them even aircraft like the eagle that are world renowned for the air superiority Mission now this is possible thanks to a very efficient and wellth thought out design rather than Brute Force performance the gri Andy has a lower thrust to weight ratio than the F-16 but boasts the same top speed of Mach 2 and can actually climb faster thanks in part to a more aerodynamically efficient design and its deltawing and canards making it arguably better suited for Rapid intercept missions with Russian Fighters so close to your borders its service ceiling of 52,000 ft is just about the same as an fa18 Super Hornet and its combat radius of about 500 mil without external tanks makes it shorter legged than the F35 but what the griin lacks in hard performance it makes up for an advanced avionics and the gri and E takes that concept to the next level in fact one could really make a legitimate argument that when it comes to Sensor Fusion situational awareness and even electronic warfare the grip and E is better compared to the F35 than any of its fourth generation peers its Raven active electronically scanned array radar is not only extremely powerful but it's actually mounted on a movable swash plate that can allow it to look to the left and to the right now this is one of those capabilities that's especially valuable in Sweden where where Swedish Pilots can be flying perpendicular to the Border but still orienting their targeting radar into Russian airspace allowing them to keep tabs on and if necessary even Target Russian Fighters without ever pointing their nose toward Russian airspace to show their hand in fact thanks to this capability the gri and E can launch a long range radar guided missile like say the meteor and then immediately turn 90° but continue to relay radar targeting data to that missile as it flies thanks to its ability to point its radar to the left or to the right there aren't a ton of details available about the gri and ease celex irst or infrared search and track system but we do know that like other modern irst systems it can detect enemy fighters from dozens of miles away in fact if it's on par with the Euro Fighters pirate system which it may well be it could potentially even detect stealth fighters from headon and as as far away as 30 Mi and from behind at more than 50 but what may make the gri and E most potent of all are its electronic warfare capabilities that were designed with Russia's military specifically in mind now a lot of the details about its ew capability set are not released but we do know that it can not only Jam enemy radar but spoof it as well spoofing meaning identifying the radio frequency that that radar array is broadcasting on and then sending it false signals back to confuse it into thinking it sees something that it doesn't and to that end one of the capabilities we know that Jammer's got is multiple Target generation in other words sending back signals that trick an enemy radar array into thinking that there are multiple other aircraft in the airspace that simply aren't there making it much more difficult to identify and Target the real threats when you need to the grian E also carries toad decoys not unlike the al55 leveraged by America super Hornets or the al70 leveraged by the F-35 these toad decoys can not only Jam radar guided missiles but they can turn themselves into juicy radar Targets in case a missile is in the air sacrificing the decoy rather than the aircraft and if that's not enough the grian E also carries bright Cloud electronic warfare Jammers which are canisters that can be deployed just like traditional chaff but while chaff is just a big cloud of metal shavings that creates a big radar turn to confuse inbound missiles brightcloud is really a self-contained electronic warfare countermeasure launched just like chaff but that continues to use electronic warfare attacks to dissuade inbound missiles and on top of all that the grian E is said to have a very small radar return anyway maybe 1.5 square m or even less putting it not that far off from the outer limits of Russia's Su 57 but all of this technology and capability isn't necessarily unique you can find similar systems and capabilities in lots of fourth generation Fighters and certainly in the F-35 what makes the grian E so special is that it can do all that and it only costs about $8,000 per hour to fly now to give you a sense of comparison the F35 rings in at around $40,000 per hour and the F16 which America considers to be a budget fighter rings in it between 26 and $30,000 that means you can operate three grippin for the same price of one F-16 and that is really saying something but it's not just cost that makes gri and E maintenance such a big deal this aircraft was designed to operate from widely dispersed AER airst strips basically anywhere you can find a highway with a 2,000 ft straightway you can operate griin from and the aircraft can be rearmed refueled and given Light maintenance by a team of just 10 maintainers only one or two of which need extensive training compare that to the F6 16 which regularly has between 25 and 30 texts assigned to it and you really get a sense of just how potent the grian E is despite its very light logistical footprint now the grippin C's and D's that make up the backbone of Sweden's Air Force today as well as the griin E's and Fs being built today are all NATO compatible and they can carry a variety of weapon systems including the a9x and the meteor air-to-air missile which I'm on record as saying is likely the most capable longrange air-to-air missile in service today thanks to its throttleable burn in other words the meteor can fly under power for a longer duration than most other long-range missiles allowing it to make course Corrections later in its flight path than many other long-range missiles can and that makes it much tougher to shank now these capabilities and more are why many of us argued that the griin was a better suited aircraft for Ukraine's fight against Russia than the F-16 but there have been some 4 600 f-16s built to date versus just a few hundred griin so the F-16 became the right choice because there just aren't enough grippin to go around if NATO ever did find itself in a conflict with Russia Sweden's proximity and purpose-built Military aimed specifically at the potential for just such a conflict would be a huge asset to the alliance not just because of their aircraft but other things too like their legendary diesel electric submarines that famously have defeated American car your strength groups in war games their armored personnel carriers and a whole lot more as a result Sweden's fairly small but extremely potent military apparatus perhaps best represented by designs like the gri and E really do represent a boon for NATO not just in terms of geopolitical positioning or diplomatic leverage but in terms of concrete combat capability and all of that goes into why I think despite the F35 being the better jet the Gripp and E is the better [Music] bargain

Channel: Sandboxx

Views: 346,155

Keywords: saab, gripen, gripen e, jas 39, fighter jet, sweden, swedish air force, nato, fighter aircraft, air force, usaf, us air force, military, airpower, aviation, jet, jets, airplane, f-35, f35

Id: mKLZIxoMoAM

Length: 11min 11sec (671 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024