Swedish Air Force interested in Boeing-Saab trainer jet, but probably not other T-X options.
STOCKHOLM — If Boeing and Saab’s trainer wins the U.S. Air Force’s T-X competition, the Swedish Air Force will put serious thought into buying it. If another company nabs the contract, however, Sweden will likely opt for a much less expensive turboprop training aircraft, a Swedish Air Force official said Monday.
Sweden currently has an inventory of 50 Saab 105 trainers, which were introduced in the late 1960s. Those planes are aging and increasingly more expensive to maintain, said Col. Magnus Liljegren, head of the Air Force department at the Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters.
"[The Boeing-Saab T-X] has all the capabilities that we need, that's for sure,” he continued. “That will be a question of money, and it will raise some other questions [like] where can we fly it locally” because of noise.
But Liljegren made clear that other T-X contenders would probably not be an option for the country.
“If Saab-Boeing will not win, we will not take the aircraft that the U.S. Air Force will go for because it doesn’t make sense in that case.” Then it would pursue a less expensive turboprop plane with a glass cockpit, like the Pilatus PC-21, he said.
“Some of [the T-X competitors] are probably too expensive,” Liljegren said, declining to elaborate.
The U.S. Air Force is currently in source selection for the T-X competition and is due to make a final decision later this year. Besides Boeing-Saab’s clean-sheet, twin-tailed design, companies have offered three other options.
Although the Swedish Air Force had planned to begin phasing out Saab 105s in the early 2020s, the government made a decision to continue operating them until about 2025 and 2026 — an outcome that means the service can consider the T-X offering jointly designed by U.S. aerospace company Boeing and Sweden’s own Saab.
"We are looking into several different aircraft,” Liljegren said during a May 8 briefing to reporters in Stockholm. Defense News accepted travel and hotel accommodations from Saab for the media trip to Sweden.
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The Swedish government has indicated that it would be interested in procuring a jet trainer designed by Boeing and Saab, if the offering is selected by Washington as the winner of the US Air Force's T-X trainer competition. However, Stockholm would not be interested in procuring any of the other T-X trainer offerings if they were to win, instead opting for a cheaper turboprop training aircraft. Sweden currently has an inventory of 50 Saab 105 trainers, which were introduced in the late 1960s, and plans are underway to retire the ageing fleet by 2026.