SAAF JAS-39C Technical Data and Discussion

A small Delta/Canard aircraft with a less than 1:1 T/W flying like it is right now isn’t exactly very believable to me, in regard to physics. Sure it has Canards, but that just adds to the AOA at a cost of speed bleed.

Problem is only Sweden is stuck with the Gripen and at 13.7 the gripen was already terrible for thr Fox 3 environment. This just hurts people who would choose sweden considering theres like 3 usable aircraft and the rest are overtiered trash. Nerfing the gripen again because its a UFO is hilarious when we even look at the Rafale of EFT in comparison. Though seems gaijins finally getting around to the EFT (now just fix the captor M i beg)

Telling people to wait for Gripen E is a actual noob take no offense but balance isn’t your strong point.

T/W ratio only becomes less than 1:1 when it’s equipped with full combat load including external tanks, not to mention Gripen has one of the lowest drag ratio compare to other delta canards which gives pretty unique flight characteristics.

I don’t think it’s overpeforming by any means.

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No it is in stability. All foward canard aircraft should have higher AOA at the cost of being unstable the problem is the Dagor engine can’t model that.

Just about every plane in the game has some overperformance. Thing is that the Gripen is one of few fighters that doesn’t totally lock you to 9G for example, there is a soft lock but if you can pull harder to get 12G irl. today most fighters in top tier can easily pull 11-12G. You can even make the brick of a Phantom pull 10-11G. So according to the roughly 1.5x increase of structural limit that Gaijin has implemented the 18G the Gripen pulled in the first Dev Servers were accruate XD.

For the T/W argument, being just under or just over 1 (as it is about 0.97:1 iirc with Gross weight so with fuel and I think 2 AIM-9 and maybe 2 AIM-120). And it will change depending on speed and altitude so it can go from just under to just above 1:1 and that makes very little difference. From what I undersand the 39E will have a T/W of about 1.2:1.

The Gripen also has incredibly low drag compared to basically everything else out there and it is very light which makes up for the lossed thrust. The canards are also the biggest if you look at the ratio of them compared to the rest of the wing area which makes them more powerfull so to say but using all that will bleed a lot of speed but it should have incredible nose authority.

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Gripen E should have similar, maybe slightly better kinematics than Gripen C. It got more thrust, which I think will help with BVR stuff, however is also quite a bit heavier. Empty weight Gripen C and Gripen E has almost the same TWR.

What? How did you come to the conclusion that the E has the same TWR as the C?

The 39E definitely has higher T/W than the 93C

It also has greatly improved wing area so the wing loading (basically a rough estimate of how efficient the airframe is in generating lift) is actually lower which is better even though it is heavier both empty and max takeoff.

Gripen E:
Thrust 98kN
Empty weight: 8.000kg
TWR: 1.22

Gripen C:
Thrust 80.5kN
Empty weight: 6.700kg
TWR: 1.20

I believe it was someone at SAAB actually that said this too (I’m paraphrasing):

I have angered the Gripen fanbase, if this was the hornet thread I would make joke about kicking a hornet nest but instead I shall post this bc funny even if somewhat inaccurate depending on circumstances:

:)

image

Jokes aside, I still find the current performance of the Gripen to be physics defying for what it is. The proposed rate nerf makes sense logically with the known performance of delta aircraft. Simply put it’s overpreforming form a logically observed point, and I suggest this nerf take place before the Gripen E is added at the very least.

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Big improvements of Gripen E is massively improved EW suite, Incredible 200-210° AESA radar, 3 more missile pylons, IRST, I can imagine engine is better at altitudes too but I haven’t looked into it that much.

Kinematically it isn’t much of an upgrade over Gripen C.

Tbf MS20 is just a bit below MS21. MS21 just builds off the C model by expanding what already worked.

Imagıne talking about Gripen while not knowing anything about it correctly, quite fun.

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Not too familiar with all the MS upgrades, but Gripen E has got a ton of all-new sensors, new large wingbeams for EW stuff. Unfortunately much of this is pretty classified so we won’t see many of the capabilities in game, but we can probably expect stuff like MAWS, and the thing EF got where it chooses when and what type of countermeasures to release. Wouldn’t be surprised if it became worse dogfighter than Gripen C.

What I wish we could get in-game is that the Gripen A gets its reduced weight that it had initially, remove HMD and 9M’s and make it a truly “early” gripen. Right now Gripen A & C is the same weight in-game. Many wrong sources out there about this so there’s some misconceptions

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It is close but improved in every way kinematically. The 39C already has one of the most advanced EW suites only being bested by dedicated EW planes while the 39E is basically a dedicated EW plane but without needing to carry heavy pods (though it still can if you want even more oumph). The AESA is a good upgrade but the regular MK3 improved we have now and MK4 that I think is going to be taken in to service in a year or two is already amazing with over 300km range and such.

I think 200-210° AESA will still be a massive improvement, you can guide your missile whilst literally flying away from the target. Range don’t matter too much in War thunder, Maps are only 128x128km and NEZ of even the AMRAAM is very small, not even considering notching and those sorta techniques being very powerful atm.

I think it won’t be very noticeable in dogfights, maybe a bit worse even. However BVR it will be much better

Yep agreed. 39E brings some great upgrades though

I have most of the MS upgrades in my bug report listed to get the all the Gripen C’s denoted by their MS, only problem is saab isn’t a reliable source so when they have made attempts to get SAAF to upgrade to MS20 the SA economy essentially shit the bed. Unfortunately since MS isnt talked about widely its hard to get official statements that they are MS19. I think personally gaijin decided to forgo the MS as a whole because they themselves had no idea until fairly recently. And now its easier to balance with it than by just a specific MS

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They are basically the same weight, maybe a hunder kilos one way or the other but they are the same airframe, almost entirely. I don’t think the chassis itself changed anything between the 39A and C. The 39A should also get RB 99 if you want to go that route by making it realistic.

The Gripens have always had an edge in EW, Typhoon pilots have remarked how scary close a Gripen could come before before being able to lock it due to the EW on the 39A! Since the start EW has been a core in the Gripen design. The 39E greatly improves on those as well but since EW is nothing in the game I doubt it will matter.

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:D I welcome any mature discussion. Regarding your post it is evident that many “players/forum members” are too caught up with T/W ratios and dont understand that there is much more than this affecting the flight characteristics. Let me link you two good interview articles where they talk about it briefly.

“‘F-16 has a higher TWR [thrust to weight ratio], but one need to consider drag and wing loading too. The Gripen has much lower drag. And far lower wing loading. It can reach supersonic speeds on dry thrust while carrying a full armament of four AMRAAM’s two Sidewinders and an external fuel tank. Even though the Gripen lacks the TWR of the F-16 it can nearly match it in climb rate thanks to low drag.”
The Saab Gripen is able to Dogfight and Win Against (Almost) Any Dissimilar Aircraft. Former Swedish Air Force Flight Engineer explains how.

" Sustained turn rate
“Good. The Gripen “carves” very well through the air, much because of its all-moving canards and leading-edge slats. Even though it doesn’t have the thrust-to-weight ratio that for instance the Russian Su-35 have, it can hold it own. A pilot always wants more power of course, but if one is looking at the return on investment for more power to get combat effectiveness out of sustained turn rate, a bigger (i.e. heavier and more fuel consuming) engine is a hard sell.”"
Flying & Fighting in the Gripen: Interview with a Swedish Air Force pilot | Hush-Kit

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