Saab Staging Rollouts for New AEW and Gripen Fighter Developments

By Chris Pocock

AIN Military Perspective >> April 2008
Aircraft

Within the span of a month, Saab is rolling out two new developments with export potential. On March 27, the first Saab 2000 twin-turboprop airliner to be modified with the Erieye Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) system made its public debut. Later this month, Saab’s upgraded Gripen fighter will emerge. The company is hoping that Denmark and Norway will prefer this version, dubbed Gripen-Demo, to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Pakistan Air Force has ordered the Saab 2000 Erieye system, and the commander of that force–ACM Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed–attended the rollout at Linkoping, Sweden. Ahmed praised the new platform’s nine-hour-plus endurance, high speed and low operational costs. Saab (previously Ericsson) Microwave Systems has sold Erieye systems to Sweden, Greece and Thailand on the smaller Saab 340 twin-turboprop airliner, and to Brazil and Mexico on Embraer EMB-145 regional jets. According to Saab, the larger Saab 2000 permits the carriage of more sensors for electronic intelligence and self-protection.

AIN will report further on the Gripen-Demo program in one of our forthcoming on-site editions at the Farnborough airshow in July.

Back

Dilemma for Boeing as Pentagon Issues Revised RFP for KC-X Friday 22. of August 2008 Boeing faces a tough decision, now that the Pentagon has confirmed that bigger is better in the KC-X tanker competition. “We’ve now revised the... [more]
GAO Confirms Naval Global Hawk as Winner of BAMS Friday 22. of August 2008 The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied a protest by Lockheed Martin over the U.S. Navy’s selection of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4N... [more]
Boeing Confident on C-17 Future; Pitching New Version Friday 22. of August 2008 Continuing production of the C-17 Globemaster airlifter into the next decade now seems assured. Boeing officials are quietly confident that the... [more]
Boeing Pushes P-8 for U.S. Navy EP-X Requirement Friday 22. of August 2008 The U.S. Navy is expected to issue a draft request for proposals this quarter for the EP-X intelligence-gathering aircraft, which will replace... [more]
UK Royal Air Force To Replace Nimrod SIGINT Aircraft with RC-135s Monday 21. of July 2008 The UK Royal Air Force flies three Nimrod R.1 versions that are dedicated to SIGINT (signals intelligence). They were converted from MR.2... [more]