Gripen igjen

Opinion: Is Saab’s New Gripen The Future Of Fighters?

By Bill Sweetman

Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology

March 24, 2014
Credit: Saab

Lockheed Martin labeled the F-35 a “fifth-generation” fighter in 2005, a term it borrowed from Russia in 2004 to describe the F-22. Some of their rivals tumbled into this rhetorical trap and tried to argue that “fourth-generation” was just as capable. Whether it is true or not, making such a case is an uphill struggle.

But if “fifth-generation” means more than “the ultimate driving machine,” a sixth generation will emerge. Saab can argue that the JAS 39E Gripen, rather than some of the wildly expensive-looking artist's concepts we have seen, is the first such aircraft.

The Gen 5 concept is almost 30 years old. It dates to the final turning point in the Cold War, when the Reagan administration accelerated the arms race, believing (correctly) that the Soviet economic engine would throw a rod first. The F-22 was designed for a challenging but simple war: If you were in a NATO fighter and the nose was pointed east, pretty much everyone headed your way was trying to kill you.

Defense technology led aerospace in those days, and aerospace drove many other technologies. Today's gaming, simulation and movies are descended from 1980s military simulators.

The world has changed a bit. Operation Allied Force in 1999 presaged the air campaigns of the 2000s, when targets were soft but hard to find, and harder yet to pick out of the civilian environment. We can say little for certain about the nature of future conflict, except that it is likely to be led by, and revolve around, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). For the individual pilot, sailor or soldier, that translates into situational awareness.

Demographics and economics are squeezing the size of the world's militaries—nations with more than 100 combat aircraft are few and becoming fewer. There are no blank checks for overruns.

Much of the technology of 1995, let alone 1985, has a Flintstones look from today's perspective. (My 1985 computer boasted 310 kb. of storage and communicated at a screaming 300 bits per second.) Software is no longer what makes machines work; an iPhone is hardware that is valued because of the apps that it supports. This technology is characterized by development and deployment cycles measured in months. In aerospace, the lead in materials and manufacturing has gone to the commercial side.

The conundrum facing fighter planners is that, however smart your engineering, these aircraft are expensive to design and build and have a cradle-to-grave product life that is far beyond either the political or technological horizon
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