I know that the Draken was designed to be primarily an interceptor and not a close-in dogfighter, but how was it's performance in air combat maneuvering?

Given the time it was constructed, I bet not too well. Wasn´t it a timemate of the Starfighter?

Also the Delta wing ( ok ok, it´s a double delta ;-)) will lead to rapid velocity loss in a tight turn IMO.

Wonder how the Mirage 2000 copes with this, as it´s still a Delta wing ( even with instability and fly - by - wire )

Hermann

The J-35 has a nice wing surface and a reasonably powerful engine, so even being a double delta I guess it shouldn`t have been much worse than other types from the same era (Mirage III, MIG-21...)

The M2000 is an unstable design which uses fly by wire controls to get the best from the delta while solving its disadvantages (high landing speeds, energy loss in turns, bad high AoA capabilities.....)

The large wing area should give it a decent instantaneous turn rate, but also a large induced drag that will reduce its sustained turn rate capabilities due to energy loss.

Gorka, how does the Mirage 2000's FBW system overcomes this issue? From my understanding of aircraft performance, you can only do it through brute force of massive engines, as the low aspect ratio wings and low wing loading increase drag exponentially regardless of the control system.

The general opinion seems to be that it was superior to our Hunters.

It climbed fast, had a high top speed, instantaneous turn rate was limited by the pilot
(as much as +20deg/sec) and the radar gave it superior situational awareness
and abillety to use the full range of the Winders.

Weaknesses vs. the Hunter would then be sustained turnrate
(I've seen numbers of ~12 dec/sec for Draken, but if pushed to far it might superstall)
and armament (4 Adens vs. 1-2 Adens).

One question is how well our Cyrano radars worked.
The israelis hade problems in getting correct ranging fir the guns with theirs (in Mirage III)
that wasn't corrected until shortly before the six days war

Whatever the technical pros and cons of the Draken (to which I believe we should add a good short-field performance as it was designed to use roads as emergency runways), I have always liked the plane for the simple reason that it was, IMO, the best-looking fighter of its era!

A pity that prevailing political circumstances prevented the RAF from adopting it as a Hunter replacement, rather than the highly-specialised Lightning. I suspect that it would have taken much of the Mirage's export business...

As it would have done if it had been selected by W. Germany instead of the F-104. A pity it wasn't - but SAAB couldn't match Lockheeds bribes.

Double delta configuration has unfortunate tendency to superstall on high AoA's, so you wouldn't want to do too much turning. Lots of pilots died to this phenomenon in the '60s.

On dogfights, Draken would preferably go to vertical and employ the good performance of the aircraft (for its time) to manage energy superiority. But even more preferably, you would not go into dogfights at all, but would employ your radar, avionics and GCI (Swedish Drakens had fairly advanced datalink system) to make slashing attacks against the enemy formation.

Regarding delta wings, F-106s surprised F-4s during some ACM exercised in the early '70s. It may have simply been good pilots fighting their planes' strengths*, but the Darts gave a very good showing. After this, a new canopy was developed to get rid of the heavy overhead rib and provision was made for an M61 cannon pack in the belly missile bay.

*I know the Phantom was not a great dogfighter itself, but she did get the job done. OTOH, the superior SA of the two-man crew plus a stronger radar frequently gave the F-4 the edge at BVR.

It's era? Of all time!

Draken was never meant to be a close range dog fighter. Its major (only) role was to be a fast interceptor. And in that role id did quite well (neither Viggen nor Gripen could match its climbing rate per minute even today). It was a pure top cover (think 1950/60s F-14 or MiG-31) for our, at the time, pretty substancial army. Regular attacks and CAS missions were to be left to the (5-600 or so) A-32s. These days are long gone however. For good and for worse. The AF, and the army that needed/needs protection just isnt there anymore. And the main task of our AF today is to participate with two -max three- fighters in, lets say a Nato exercice in Romania where one learns how to use its IFF transponder in the correct Nato way. And maybe also to train refueling routines etc on the ground. Invaluable experiences indeed, but the SWAF just isnt what it was durig the "Draken Era". And ultemately thats a good thing I guess..

Now that is a good pic. It doesnt get more Cold War Sweden than that (think early 1980:s). Nato in the west, WP in the east. Be prepared for any of it -and the (super patriotic and happy) taxpayers'll foot the fuel bill anyways, so..

Not according to two of my books. They give the J 35 Filip a climb rate of about 34 400 feet per minute and the JA 37 about 40 000 feet per minute. Didnt check other books though.

Hans: I second that. Its right up there together with Hunter and F-86.

Doh! Your right, should have checked my figures first. Seems the fighter version of Viggen (JA-37) was even faster. But still the Gripen blossoms i shame in comparation. Different times different needs (and priorities) I guess.

Well, the J35 was originally concieved as a subsonic (mach 0,9@11'000m) bomber interceptror.
As was, she was twice as fast and they were used in all fighter roles from the deck and up.
Considering the lack of range of cold war VVS-fighters, their depenence of GCI
and the swedish mainland being beyond soviet ground radar range,
it seems fair that russian bombers and later Fencers was the most likely targets over most of our territory.

Performancewise, the JA37:s could outclimp the Draken (100s from brake release to 10'000m),
while the Gripen outclimbs the Viggen (<100s from brake release to 10'000m)

As far as A32:s goes, <300 were built.
Including fighter and reconversions we are talking ~450 Lansens all in all.
The Lansens mission was antishiping and interdiction, while CAS as always was a non issue.

Interception then.

Ok, I see this isnt holding water any longer (prob never did). Must track down and execute false source in most painful way

Jeez, whats 150-300 fighter between friends? Were on the same team here Olof so you should be helping me in my attempts
to make the Murricans and their lap dogs fear us in retrospect.

It's quite an impressive-looking aircraft. Anyone completely unfamiliar with military aircraft might look at it and think it's some newfangled fifth-generation fighter.

I decided to order the Hasegawa 1/48 model kit, but research on Swedish camo patterns of the 1950's and 60's is coming up with very little. Anyone have any decent references?

There, fixed it for ya...

I'll be happy to look around for you and PM what I can find (dont expect many color pics though mate).
Does this plane of yours belong to a specific regiment/sqadroon? Or do you vant it to belong to a certain unit?

But you might want to repost your question in th Moddelers forum. Guys like Bearded Dragon and TomasCTT knows about everything about model kits any sane person possibly could ever need.

I won't argue with that (although I'm also rather fond of the original MiG-29, which has a different aesthetic).

There's a Draken in a UK aviation museum - I forget where - but I remember seeing it many years ago and salivating...

The F35 Draken was flown by the Royal Danish Airforce along with F104s and F100s, as from I know it was etremely well liked by the pilots - a real "pilot's aircraft"!

BTW the RDA also used the F35 in ground support role, but that might have been in lack of more suited aircraft.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

You can find some colour profiles here, from early to late service: http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww3/f/6/90/0

Thanks for the tips. This is straying a bit into the modeler's aspect, but this is the particular kit I'm getting:

http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=HE09837

Danish Draken's were built as 35XD models built specifically for the strike role, the only such Draken's built. Orders consisted of 20 F-35 fighter-bombers, 20 RF-35 recce fighters and 6 TF-35 operational trainers with 5 more added later. The 35XD airframe was optimized for ground attack rather than air defense with a reinforced structure, 9 external hardpoints for weapons and fuel tanks and a 40% increase in internal fuel. Danish Draken's carried oversized 1,275-liter external fuel tanks (525 liters standard for Swedish fighter Drakens) which I understand were sold to Austria when the Danish Draken's were retired. Instead of the intercept radar in the nose the 35XD carried a Saab BT-9 bomb sight and 05XDT mission computer. RF-35's had 5 Vinton camera's in the nose with 1 later replaced by a laser rangefinder.

PS

I've got all the Hasegawa 1/48 and 1/72 scale Draken kits. They are quite nice and the price Squadron has on them right now is a steal.

Almost all fighters designed in the late 50's were intended to be bomber interceptors. The F-104, F-106, Mirage III and Draken were all great straight line fighters, good climb rate, mach 2+, good (for the day) radar and since the days of dogfighting were over (so they thought) the only turning they were expected to do was on final approach to landing.

There were a few aircraft designed then that actually could put up a good show in a turning fight, only 1 of them made it to production. Two of the also rans (both losing their respective procurement battles) were the Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger and the F8U-3 Super Crusader. They combined mach 2+ speed, decent climb rates and high aspect ratio wings for good turn performance. The F8U-3 lost out to the F-4 and the F11F-1F to the F-104.

The one aircraft that combined speed, maneuverability and climb that went into production was the Lightning. It's major handicap was the fact that the enemy aircraft would have had to be actually flying over your airfield if you hoped to catch it before you ran out of fuel.

Thats not really accurate, just because they were designed with energy tactics in mind doesn't mean they were designed only to be manned ballistic rockets for intercepting bombers.
The F104 was designed very specifically as a response to the MiG-15's performance, based on Kelly listening to F86 pilotskorean experience and the Mirage III was designed with full aerial combat duties in mind.

The Lightning however was designed to be effectively the manned-ballistic-missile for intercepting bombers.

A few pics of Danish Drakens:



And a couple in fancy paintjobs:



Lineup of all surviving Drakens in 1990:


It seems that a fair number of Danish Drakens ended up in the USA

http://www.draken.dk/PDF%20Filer/Draken.pdf (file in Danish)

All pictures and info from this site: http://www.draken.dk/

cbo

The two-seater Draken looks way better than the single-seat version. One of the few fighters that actually look better that way.

A Draken was also used in the movie Fire Birds, the Army's version of Top Gun. The Draken was a nice touch, but Apaches can't touch Tomcats on the hot meter...

The Draken was a prominent aircraft in Kaoru Shintani's Area 88 manga and anime.

To me the Draken has always seemed like something from the Thunderbirds rather than a real fighter design. Maybe it's just the unconventional looks, but it looks like a toy. And not a particularly handsome toy at that. But it sure looks different and cool.

Well, one of the nicknames Draken had in Finnish AF was "Lentävä silitysrauta" (Flying Iron, iron in this context meaning the thing used for ironing clothes).

Apparently, experiencing (and surviving) superstall gave the oppurtunity of bestowing a bunch of other names...

What other names, may I ask?