19 Mar 2019, 15:08
Interestingly, he downplays the importance or relevance of Kinematics in a hypothetical modern scenario. Or at least he never answered the question directly and instead pointed to the Gripen's other strengths.
When you hear Raptor pilots talk about it they always rave on how the combination of Speed, Stealth, Situtational awareness and supermaneuverability makes them nearly invulneable and extremely leathal.
Typhoon pilots say they are the only ones who can "hang with Raptors, high and fast"
F-16 pilots, Ow its the ultimate rate machine
I think the fact that pilots are trained to play by their aircraft's strenths and minimize their weaknesses causes them to believe in their core what they say.
So a Raptor pilot will be trained to take advantage of that enourmous envelope while a Gripen pilot will be taught to always stay away from the fight at all cost.
Thus, pilots of kinematically inferior planes will always tell you how that is not important, or that the have chosen a "balanced" approach to survivability. Just like how they downplayed the relevance of Stealth.
How would you rate the Gripen in the following categories:
A. Instantaneous Turn rates
B. Sustained turn rates
C. Acceleration
D. Climb rate
E. Range
“Without mentioning specific numbers since this would be classified I would like to expand the question a bit. We have built Gripen to achieve the highest possible operational effect in a number of scenarios defined by our customers. To do this we have to balance a number of factors such as platform performance, sensor performance, weapon performance, avionics, Human Machine Interface etc. The classic metaphor stating that a chain isn’t stronger than its weakest link is relevant for fighters as well! So the answer would be; platform performance is as good as or better than what is needed to reach the high overall operational effect demand of a future fighter.”
(Though Jonas avoids answering this question directly I would like to quote from this article “Gripen is a bit of an unknown quantity against modern air superiority machines because it takes a fundamentally different approach to survivability. Whilst in traditional DACT exercises, Typhoon pilots have often referred to the Gripen as ‘cannon-fodder’ due to its inferior thrust-to-weight ratio, speed, agility and armament, in the few cases where the Gripen has ‘come to play’ with its full electronic warfare capabilities, it has given Typhoons very nasty shocks. Against the Su-35S, Gripen would rely on the cutting edge EW capabilities which Saab builds the Gripen (especially the new E/F) around to hide the aircraft from the sensors of the Russian jets in much the same way as the Raptor relies on x-band stealth. These EW capabilities are so highly classified that there is simply no way to assess their effectiveness in the public domain. Having said that, RAF pilots who I have talked to with experience of the Saab fighter’s EW teeth first hand say that the ability of the aircraft to get alarmingly close without detection thanks entirely to EW is very impressive.” The answer that modern air combat has greater emphasis on fighting at a distance is not just an avoidant answer, but if the Gripen was a very energetic aircraft Saab would be keen to share this, as Eurofighter is with the Typhoon. It is however understood that Gripen has a particularly good instantaneous turn rate. )
When you hear Raptor pilots talk about it they always rave on how the combination of Speed, Stealth, Situtational awareness and supermaneuverability makes them nearly invulneable and extremely leathal.
Typhoon pilots say they are the only ones who can "hang with Raptors, high and fast"
F-16 pilots, Ow its the ultimate rate machine
I think the fact that pilots are trained to play by their aircraft's strenths and minimize their weaknesses causes them to believe in their core what they say.
So a Raptor pilot will be trained to take advantage of that enourmous envelope while a Gripen pilot will be taught to always stay away from the fight at all cost.
Thus, pilots of kinematically inferior planes will always tell you how that is not important, or that the have chosen a "balanced" approach to survivability. Just like how they downplayed the relevance of Stealth.
