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Saab 37 Viggen
Mangan2002 · CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons

Saab 37 Viggen

Fighter aircraft

ManufacturerSaab Group
Saab 37 Viggen (The Tufted Duck; the word also means The Thunderbolt) is a single-seat, single-engine multirole combat aircraft designed and produced by the Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab. It was the first canard-equipped aircraft to be produced in quantity and the first to carry an airborne digital central computer with integrated circuits for its avionics, arguably making it the most modern/advanced combat aircraft in Europe at the time of introduction. The digital central computer was the first of its kind in the world, automating and taking over tasks previously requiring a navigator/copilot, facilitating handling in tactical situations where, among other things, high speeds and short decision times determined whether attacks would be successful or not, a system not surpassed until the introduction of the Panavia Tornado into operational service in 1981.
Development work began during the early 1950s to develop a successor to the Saab 32 Lansen in the attack role, as well as to the Saab 35 Draken as a fighter. Saab's design team opted for a relatively radical delta wing configuration, and operation as an integrated weapon system in conjunction with Sweden's STRIL-60 national...

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Specifications

Length
16.3 m
Wingspan
10.6 m
Number built
330
Introduced
1967
First flight
1967
Entered service
1972
Retired
2007

Countries that use it (1)

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Model data: Wikidata (CC0) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Figures can differ between versions of the same weapon. · Q263786