{"id":180238,"date":"2017-06-16T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/06\/16\/gripen-e-makes-maiden-flight\/"},"modified":"2017-06-16T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T00:11:00","slug":"gripen-e-makes-maiden-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/06\/16\/gripen-e-makes-maiden-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Gripen E Makes Maiden Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The upgraded Gripen, which is basically a completely new aircraft, jas <a href=\"http:\/\/aviationweek.com\/combat-aircraft\/gripen-e-makes-first-flight\">just made its first flight<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab has completed the first flight of its prototype E-model Gripen fighter jet.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The prototype, coded 39-8, took to the air at 10:32 a.m. local time June 15 from the company\u2019s development facility at Linkoping, flying for 40 min. and reaching an altitude of 13,000 ft. before touching down safely.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Video and imagery of the aircraft departing and inflight showed a relatively short takeoff run in dry power and revealed that the company retracted the landing gear inflight, a relatively rare occurrence in first flights. Two twin-seat JAS-39D Gripens acted as chase aircraft.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The aircraft took 10 years to develop, which by the standard of modern fighter development is a very short time, and while pricier than its it is still far cheaper to operate than its competitors.<\/p>\n<p>Total employment on the program is less than that of just the program office for the F-35, and total development cost for the program was less than that of the most recent software release for the JSF. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense-aerospace.com\/articles-view\/feature\/5\/183525\/first-flight-of-gripen-e-will-reveal-true-cost-of-fighter-development.html\">link<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>There is no reasonable justification for the protracted and expensive developments that have become the standard in western fighter programs.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a PR video from Saab:<br \/><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"279\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AM6Nh9FlRBo\" width=\"496\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The upgraded Gripen, which is basically a completely new aircraft, jas just made its first flight: Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab has completed the first flight of its prototype E-model Gripen fighter jet.The prototype, coded 39-8, took to the air at 10:32 a.m. local time June 15 from the company\u2019s development facility at Linkoping, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,381,401],"class_list":["post-180238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-defense-procurement","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}