Swedish Air Force

night fighter of the Swedish Air Force in 1949 The Swedish Air Force was created on 1 July 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the escalating international tension during the 1930s the Air Force was reorganized and expanded from four to seven squadrons. World War II When World War II broke out in 1939 further expansion was initiated and this substantial expansion was not finished until the end of the war. Although Sweden never entered the war, a large air force was considered necessary to ward off the threat of invasion and to resist pressure through military threats from the great powers. By 1945 the Swedish Air Force had over 800 combat-ready aircraft, including 15 fighter divisions. A major problem for the Swedish Air Force during World War II was the lack of fuel. Sweden was surrounded by countries at war and could not rely on imported oil. Instead domestic oil shale was heated to produce the needed petrol. About 250 aircrew were killed in crashes 1939-1945 according to statistics that were not disclosed during the war years but published afterwards. Expansion during the Cold War The Swedish Air Force underwent a rapid modernization from 1945. It was no longer politically acceptable to equip it with second-rate aircraft types. Instead, the Air Staff purchased the best it could find from abroad, e.g. P-51D Mustangs, De Havilland Mosquito NF.19 night fighters and de Havilland Vampires, and supported the development of top performance domestic models. The Saab 29 Tunnan jet fighter was introduced around 1950. In the late 1950s the Swedish Air Force introduced the Bas 60 air base system, which revolved around force dispersal of air squadrons across many wartime air bases in case of war in order to make it complicated for an opponent to destroy the air force on the ground. Road runways were also introduced as backup runways. Bas 60 was developed further into Bas 90 during the 1970s and 1980s. During the Cold War large amounts of money (including funds intended for the Swedish nuclear weapons programme) were spent on the Swedish Air Force and domestic aircraft production. In 1957 Sweden had the world's fourth most powerful air force, with about 1,000 modern planes in front-line service. During the 1950s, it introduced fighters such as the Saab J 29 Tunnan, Saab A 32 Lansen and Saab J 35 Draken. In June 1952 the Swedish Air Force lost two aircraft on Cold War operations, in what became known as the Catalina affair. A signals intelligence Douglas DC-3 was intercepted by Soviet MiG-15s over the Baltic, and shot down with the loss of three aircrew and five civilian technicians. A PBY Catalina rescue seaplane was then also downed, the five-man crew being rescued from the sea by a freighter. In the air defence role the Swedish Air Force also operated surface-to-air missiles. Svea Air Corps (F 8) operated de Havilland J-28B Vampire jet aircraft in 1949 being replaced in 1953 by Saab J-29 Tunnan and in 1957 by J-34 Hunter fighters. As of 1961 F 8 reroled into missile defence role becoming the air force technical training centre for using the new RB-68 Bloodhound systems in 2 squadrons until 1974. These Swedish units also operated the RB-68 missile system (1 squadron each): • Scania Wing, also F 10 Ängelholm • Kalmar Wing, also F 12 Kalmar, • Bråvalla Wing, also F 13 Norrköping • Blekinge Wing, also F 17 Kallinge, Death toll during the Cold War In the Cold War era, more than 600 Swedish fighter pilots were killed in crashes during peacetime exercises and training in the 1945–1991 period. In the 1950s–60s era the flight training curriculum was deficient and the training regimes were too risky and some aircraft types had design flaws. In the 1950s, about 21 pilots were killed annually. In the 1960s the average number of killed were 13 per year, which meant Sweden had sixfold mortality rate per 100,000 flight hours compared to the United States. In the 1960s flight safety started to become a consideration, not due to the death toll but because the aircraft were getting increasingly expensive. The announcement responded to a NATO request for assistance. The Swedish fighters were limited to supporting the no-fly zone and were not authorized to engage in ground attack sorties. The deployment was approved by the Riksdag on 1 April 2011 and the first jets departed for Libya on 2 April. A C-130 Hercules accompanied the fighters for mid-air refueling. Poland 2025 In March of 2025 Sweden, now a part of NATO, sent six Saab Gripen fighters to Poland to take part in an enhanced air policing mission to protect NATO's borders from Russia. ==Equipment==