Saab Gripen

The Saab JAS 39 Gripen, whose name means griffin in Swedish, is a light single-engine multirole fighter aircraft developed by the Swedish aerospace company Saab, first flying in December 1988 and entering service with the Swedish Air Force in 1996. Built with a delta wing and forward canard configuration and fly-by-wire controls around a deliberately relaxed aerodynamic stability for high agility, and designed from the outset for short takeoffs and landings from short or damaged roads and runways as part of Swedish wartime dispersal doctrine, the Gripen is capable of the fighter, attack and reconnaissance roles the JAS designation stands for. More than 280 Gripens across several model generations have been delivered, with export customers including the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, Thailand, Brazil and Ukraine, and the aircraft remains in active production.