Gripen E goes supersonic

On 18 November, the new generation Gripen E fighter flew supersonic for the first time over the Baltic Sea. The Gripen E flew at speeds greater than the speed of sound, at over Mach 1, as part

of the ongoing flight trials programme. The purpose was to collect data from the aircraft as it achieved and sustained supersonic speed and the aircraft sustained supersonic speed for a number of minutes, whilst carrying out maneouvres. Jonas Hjelm, Senior Vice President and head of business area Aeronautics stated, “Individual milestones such as this supersonic flight demonstrate the thoroughness of our engineering approach and validity of the modelling. It is further evidence that the Gripen E flight test programme is going extremely well, whilst the delivery schedule to our two customers remains our key focus.”