Swedish Air Force Flight Engineer tells how the Gripen can Dogfight and Win Against (Almost) Any Dissimilar Aircraft

By Dario Leone – The Aviation Geek Club

Gripen has successfully participated in NATO-led operations as well as numerous exercises and air policing assignments.

‘Gripen first participated in Red Flag 2006 with the Gripen A,’ says Stefan Englund , former Swedish Air Force Flight Engineer on Quora. ‘It was assigned to the red team. Reduced AWACS, reduced ground support. The Gripens connected their link systems and acted themselves as AWACs, got the battlefield awareness necessary and avoided all ground defence, scored 10 kills the first day including a Typhoon. No losses they remained undetected. One Gripen pilot knocked down five F-16 block 50+ during close air combat in Red Flag Alaska. And the Gripens never lost any aerial encounter or failed their mission objectives. It was the only fighter that performed all planed starts, while others were sitting on the ground waiting for the weather to clear up. The evaluation was that Gripen capacity needed to be revaluated.