Saab will begin flight-test activities later this year in support of its work on a Future Fighter System study for Sweden, chief executive Micael Johansson says.
“More than 100 people are working on the future fighter concept,” Johansson says. “We will fly a number of systems over the next few years, which will be unmanned to start with,” he adds, with the activity to commence during 2025.
With the Swedish air force expected to operate its on-order Saab Gripen E fighters until around 2050, he suggests that the study’s early focus “will be more like a collaborative combat aircraft or collaborative surveillance aircraft that will work together with a manned capability”.
Saab last year said that it would advance concepts and technology demonstrators in support of the Swedish project, exploring technology areas including low observability, structures, internal weapons bays, autonomy and artificial intelligence.
The company also is currently supporting trials work by the Swedish army using a drone swarm system.
“There is no limitation to how many there could be in a swarm,” Johansson said during the company’s annual results briefing on 7 February. “The operator will tell the swarm to go and do a mission and that system will self-organise itself and do it without intervention from any pilot.”
Meanwhile, he says contract negotiations continue with Thailand over the nation’s planned Gripen E buy, and cites further “strong interest” in the type as coming from Colombia and Peru. Brazil – which has so far received eight examples from an order for 36 E/Fs – also is considering a follow-on purchase, detailed late last year as likely to cover an extra nine jets initially.
“There is a lot of intensity around the Gripen programme,” Johansson says.
Saab reported sales of SKr63.8 billion ($5.8 billion) in 2024, against an order intake of SKr96.8 billion. It ended the year with an order backlog valued at SKr187 billion.
