John Weston, Managing Director of British Aerospace Defence, admitted yesterday that when BAe and Saab joined forces at the last Paris show to market the Swedish company's Gripen, he was "very dubious" about the description of the aircraft as a 'fourth generation' fighter.
He recalled thinking to himself: "What does it mean and how do you sell it?"
He now says he knows at least part of the answer - a fourth-generation fighter is not an F-16 or a Mirage 2000.
Amused
He is amused by Lockheed Martin's description of its F-16 as "-a fourth-generation fighter with a generation of experience".
This, he feels, is a polite way of saying a 1970s design with updates. The Mirage 2000, he says, is slightly closer to the fourth-generation mark, but still not there.
Marking two years of the "marriage" between the British and Swedish companies, he says he can report: "We're still in love."
He describes Gripen as the "most solid" programme in the new fighter field, with a third batch of aircraft due to be ordered by Sweden within weeks.
Some 35 have been delivered out of the 140 so far ordered for the air force and the service's first Gripen Wing is in the final stages of achieving combat readiness.
The first export breakthrough is still 12 to18 months away, he says.
The best chances for the first sales are Austria and a couple of South American nations, including Chile.
Source: Flight Daily News
