Paris: The Swedish Air Force will not rush to join either of the two major European led sixth-generation fighter jet programs, as it continues to focus on preliminary “fact finding” activities, two senior Swedish military officials said.
Stockholm has so far declined to join the newly formed UK, Italian and Japanese Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), despite signing a Memorandum of Understanding with London in 2019 on a “joint combat air development and acquisition programme.” And it doesn’t sound like any change will be forthcoming.
“We do not have an immediate need for a new fighter, which perhaps is different for other nations,” Gen. Lars Helmrich, director of air and space systems at the Swedish Defence Material Administration, said at an event hosted by the Swedish Air Force Fan Club here. “We’re looking to start early [for planning purposes] and be better situated for when we need to decide on the next fighter. It’s a matter of pace.”
“In terms of sixth-generation [plans], we’re doing a lot of work in different contexts and different cooperations right now, which is very important for us in trying to figure out [a decision],” said commander of the Swedish Air Force Maj. Gen. Jonas Wikman. “Right now it’s not a procurement program, it is a fact finding program.”
He also suggested a Gripen pilot shortage that led Swedish Air Force flight hours on the aircraft to fall annually, by nearly 12 percent, is under control and not adversely impacting operational priorities.
“We have quite a low number of pilots, and the reason for that is the retirement rate against an influx rate, which we have been aware of for a while,” he explained. “We are hoping to solve that problem before it effects our capabilities, because we have managed to keep readiness up during this period.”
Besides future fighter prospects, Wikman said that the Swedish Air Force will be “ready to act” as a NATO aligned organisation once entry to the alliance has been approved. Turkey and Hungary continue to delay ratifying Sweden’s membership application to join NATO, despite pressure to do so from within the alliance, ahead of the Heads of State Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next month.
