Going To The Tanker
Date: 1 May 2005
Gripen is cleared for air-to-air refuelling after a successful joint Swedish and South African test program.
Air-to-Air refuelling (AAR) is one of the key capabilities available to Gripen export customers and for Sweden's own JAS 39C/D aircraft. For the pilots flying those Gripens however, AAR will be a routine task with no drama or excitement - thanks to the sterling work of the Gripen flight test team in clearing the aircraft for AAR contacts.
In a very smooth-running test effort conducted between March and April this year, two Swedish and one South
African test pilot undertook around 400 air-to-air ‘prods' with a South African Air Force (SAAF) Boeing 707 tanker that was specially deployed to Sweden. The tanking was not simulated or conducted in dry runs, it was a real-world trial that proved the full functionality of the AAR system so neatly integrated by Gripen's designers.
For the Gripen team it meant that their aircraft now has all the clearances required to operate with a NATO-qualified tanker aircraft. For South Africa it had the added bonus of familiarizing its air force personnel with an important part of Gripen operations well ahead of schedule.
Some early Gripen AAR test flights were conduced in the UK during November 1998 and again in 1999. The final
trials in 2005 cleared virtually every aspect of the aircraft's flight envelope. Gripens were refuelled by the SAAF tanker at altitudes from 6,000 ft to 30,000 ft. The Gripens themselves were flown with a very wide range of loads to prove their stability behind the tanker - using not just common air-to-air loads but also maximum ‘heavy' loads and maximum asymmetric loads. On several occasions two Gripens were refuelled simultaneously.
Saab test pilot Magnus Olsson noted, "we actually completed the refuelling trials in less than the planned time.We were more than pleased with the results, there were absolutely no snags and we met all the test points.We are now fully NATO verified for AAR."
Gripen News 2/2005
