“Aggressor” Gripen

At the DSEI exhibition in London in September, a new variant of the JAS 39 Gripen C was revealed, with the same handling and flight characteristics, sensors and data link capabilities as the Gripen C, but no live weapons capability. Saab’s head of Gripen marketing and sales Richard Smith then said that the company sees potential for the Aggressor with the US Air Force’s Adversary Air and UK Ministry of Defence’s Air Support to Defence Operational Training (ASDOT) programmes, the former to provide 40,000 hours of contracted aggressor support training at 12 bases in the United States.