Gripen E delivery phase starts
Ramping up for full production
The delivery phase of serial Gripen E aircraft will commence before the end of the year, with delivery of four aircraft to Brazil and additional aircraft to Sweden. This important milestone for the programme has been made possible due to smart ways of working, innovative production technologies and a close cooperation with the customers.
The Gripen E programme continues to deliver very good progress and is on track to deliver in line with our customer agreements. In November this year, the delivery phase to both the Swedish and the Brazilian customer will begin. Last year the deliveries to the joint Gripen E test and verification programme with the customers started. One aircraft is stationed at Malmen Air Force base in Linköping, Sweden and another one at the Gripen Flight Test Centre (GFTC), located at the Embraer plant in Gavião Peixoto, Brazil. With that, together with Saab’s main facilities in Linköping, there are now in total three test sites in two countries.
“In total, nine Gripen E are ready and flying, with several more coming later this year. The flight critical part of the programme is more or less completed and we are now focusing on verification and declaration in order to reach Military Type Certificate, continued tactical development and activities in order to enable delivery of the complete weapon system,” says Mikael Olsson, Head of Flight Test and Verification.
Full production rate
The speed is not only increasing within Gripen E flight testing, the same goes with the production facilities where the capacity continuously increases and is ramping up for full production rate in Linköping during next year. Production of around 30 Gripen E aircraft are currently underway, which means that Saab has started manufacturing of close to one third of the fighters currently in the order backlog.
“We have come a long way and have established a mature production process in a very short time. All of our earlier experiences, use of innovative production technology, streamlined processes and methods including our professional personnel, will result in a full production rate next year,” says Matti Olsson, Head of Production.
In the production facilities in Linköping, Brazilians and Swedes are working side by side. Structural assembly, installation, final assembly and other production-related activities currently employ more than 1000 employees. Prior to the above-mentioned stages of production, there is also a substantial involvement of both external suppliers and in-house detail manufacturing workshops relating to parts production and structural manufacturing.