[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Skybird

1000 Swedish Gripen interceptors...? Never. Who should fly these? Mountain trolls?


Compoare, Germany, with a much biugger population, at the height of the cold war operated 900+ Starfighter (of which a third crashed). Why did they crash? Well, lacking maintenace cpaacity of the Luftwaffe had much to do with it. Too many planes for too few service engineers and too stressed supply logistics (spareparts). Sweden has much smaller armed forces, even back then. No chance they can maintain and supply one thousand combat aircraft.


Too low training capacities also should be mentioned. The Gripen is a Swedish design, you will not find instructor centres in other countries where Swedish pilots would be trained (like f.e. Lufthansa trains pilots for other airlines as well).

Swiss has Gripen planes