Saab rolls out first Gripen F two-seat fighter jet

Saab rolled out the first Gripen F two-seat fighter to the Brazilian Air Force on June 2 at its Linköping facility in Sweden, presenting the newest variant of the Gripen E family to the air force that helped develop it and marking a milestone in one of the most substantive defense industrial partnerships between a European aerospace company and a Latin American nation.

The aircraft now heads to Saab’s Flight Test Centre in Sweden for a dedicated flight test campaign before final delivery, with Brazil having played an active role in the variant’s co-development through a technology transfer program that has trained hundreds of Brazilian engineers and technicians.

The Gripen F addresses a challenge that every air force managing a high-performance fighter fleet faces: how to train pilots on the aircraft they will actually fly in combat rather than on a separate, less capable trainer that develops habits and instincts suited to a different machine. Traditional conversion training runs pilots through a dedicated two-seat trainer, often a modified variant of the frontline aircraft, that teaches the basics of operating the platform before transitioning to the single-seat operational version. The gap between what a trainer allows and what the operational aircraft demands means pilots spend considerable time after initial conversion discovering the differences between the two experiences. The Gripen F eliminates that gap by being a fully operational fighter with a second independent cockpit, meaning an instructor can observe, guide, and intervene during real mission profiles flown in an actual combat aircraft, not a simulation or a simplified trainer variant.

The second cockpit’s independence is the technical detail that makes this operationally meaningful. An instructor and trainee in the same aircraft, each with full access to the aircraft’s sensors, weapons systems, and flight controls, can divide the workload of a complex mission in ways that accelerate the learning curve considerably. A trainee managing navigation and communication while the instructor monitors the tactical picture, or an instructor taking control of weapons employment while the trainee handles threat avoidance, creates training conditions that single-seat aircraft simply cannot replicate. That shared workload capability also has direct operational value beyond training: a Gripen F crew can split the cognitive demands of a high-threat environment between two qualified pilots, potentially improving decision quality and response time in exactly the scenarios where those factors matter most.

Lars Tossman, head of Saab’s business area Aeronautics, described the rollout in terms that reflect the depth of the Brazil-Sweden industrial relationship the aircraft embodies: “The rollout of Gripen F represents a shared achievement between Saab, Brazilian industry and the Brazilian Air Force, reflecting the deep trust we have built together over many years. Developing this aircraft together demonstrates the maturity of this collaboration. It represents not only a highly capable fighter for the Brazilian Air Force, but also the tangible outcome of sustained joint development and shared ambition.”

The 2014 contract that brought the Gripen to Brazil covers 36 aircraft in total: 28 single-seat Gripen E variants and eight two-seat Gripen F. Deliveries began in 2020 and 11 aircraft have been handed over to date, with the Gripen F rollout now beginning the next phase of that delivery sequence. The program represents a significant investment in Brazilian aerospace sovereignty, with the technology transfer component designed to leave Brazil with genuine engineering capability for maintaining, modifying, and eventually building Gripen-derived systems domestically rather than creating a permanent dependency on Swedish support for every maintenance and modification requirement.

The Gripen E’s underlying technology, which the Gripen F shares entirely in terms of its flight systems, sensors, and weapons architecture, represents Sweden’s answer to the question of how a medium-sized nation builds and sustains a frontline combat aircraft in an era when development costs have pushed most countries out of the indigenous fighter business entirely. The aircraft uses a single Volvo Aero RM12 turbofan engine, a derivative of the General Electric F404, producing approximately 80 kilonewtons (17,986 lb) of thrust with afterburner, and its delta-canard configuration provides exceptional agility at both low and high speeds. The open-architecture mission systems design allows new sensors, weapons, and software to be integrated relatively quickly compared to the locked proprietary architectures of older Western fighters, which is one reason Gripen’s operational cost per flight hour has consistently been cited as among the lowest in its performance class.

Saab has secured Gripen F orders beyond Brazil, with Thailand and Colombia also having placed orders for the two-seat variant, confirming that the demand for a genuine operational fighter with training capability extends across multiple geographies and operational requirements. For Thailand, which has operated the Gripen since 2011 and is one of the aircraft’s most experienced non-European operators, the F variant fills an existing gap in its Gripen training infrastructure. For Colombia, which signed a Gripen purchase agreement, the F variant similarly provides the training bridge for transitioning pilots from previous aircraft types.

The flight test campaign that the first Gripen F will now undergo at Saab’s Swedish test facility follows the established sequence for new aircraft variants: systematic expansion of the flight envelope, validation of systems performance across the operating range, and accumulation of the test data that supports safety-of-flight certification before the aircraft enters regular service. The Gripen E single-seat variant completed its development program and has been operating with the Swedish and Brazilian air forces, meaning the Gripen F inherits a validated platform with known performance characteristics and adds the specific systems associated with the second cockpit. That inheritance reduces the test scope compared to an entirely new aircraft design, but the specific integration of dual flight controls, dual mission systems displays, and the instructor-trainee interface still requires its own systematic validation campaign before the aircraft can be handed over and pilots trusted to fly it in operational conditions.