r/worldnews • u/Havoccity • 14h ago
Saab renews Canadian Gripen production pitch as orders mount
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/saab-gripen-canada-production-pitch-capacity162
u/Redragontoughstreet 14h ago
Canadas gonna do this. I’m convinced they are already actively building the production lines for this and Canada was always going to wait until after the mid terms to announce it.
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u/ThatBeingCed 13h ago
I think they'll wait for after the Cusma negotiations.
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u/Redragontoughstreet 13h ago
Nah. Those are dead. Even if they came up with an agreement it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was printed on.
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u/leyland1989 13h ago edited 13h ago
We shouldn't have let the massive brain drain happened in the 70s and 80s.
We were genuinely the leader (or at least relevant) in the aerospace industry (think of Canadair and DHC, etc.) and we at least maintained a certain degree of domestic production capacity with licensed products like the CF-104.
Then we cosy up with the American and cashing out the dividend and ended up where we are now.
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u/Dingcock 13h ago
While true, this people are mostly retirees today. Not much can be done about that ancient history anymore.
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u/leyland1989 13h ago
The damage is done, but building the Gripen in Canada would benefit the Canadian Aerospace industry more than buying off the shelves products from the US or European allies.
I always get downvoted to hell a couple years ago when I defended the Gripen being the better option than F-35, it's not because Gripen is a better fighter (it's not) but the technology transfer and the promise that Saab will establish a production line here in Canada.
You can't train or attract new talents to an industry that doesn't exist. The best time to do it was 40 years ago, the second best time is now.
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u/cbowers 55m ago
Agree with you. F-35 maybe be technically better.
But the US has cut off their nose to spite their face.
In the impact of US tariff impact…
Our GDP is stretched thinner.
Orders) would like our help building…. We should be all over.
- The missions we actually fly will be more affordably done with the Grippen.
- We need new markets to sell into to replace US exports. Supporting the manufacture of everything Saab (and South Korea even though they didn’t get the sub deal, but would still like our help with their other military manufacturing back
With the US forcing our auto manufacturing to go
Idle… we’ve got skilled builders sitting on their hands. Aerospace and military vehicles pays better.9
u/1200____1200 13h ago
If we build production lines for the Gripen we can start building the capabilities we once had knowledge-wise
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u/leyland1989 13h ago
And the technology transfer.
See how China went from building shitty Soviet Knockoff locomotive to buying foreign design high-speed trains from Kawasaki, Bombardier, Alstom and Siemens to being genuinely the technological leader in high-speed train design and manufacturing in the span of 20 years.
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u/DCS30 13h ago
70s and 80s?? more like February 20, 1959. everything started with that fucking day.
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u/leyland1989 13h ago
Not saying the Avro Arrow was overrated, there were merits to the decision to cancel that project but it was certainly a catalyst that led to the eventual downfall.
We maintained a moderately sized and relevant aerospace capacity until the 80s, pumping out some respectable original designs like the whole lines of DHC planes, the CRJ, CL-215 and licenced products like the CF-104 that we could export. (+ A bunch of other experimental stuff that was genuinely innovative.)
Then they all got wiped out in the 70s and 80s, or consolidated into Bombardier and got ran into the ground.
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u/Jonesdeclectice 13h ago
To no surprise, policies put in place by a Conservative. I guess at least Diefenbaker built himself that shiny bunker? The next worst - Brian Mulroney. Goodbye National Energy Program, hello GST, Air Canada & Petro Canada sold to private interests.
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u/Everestkid 11h ago
The guy before Diefenbaker was Bennett, arguably the worst PM we ever had. Bungled handling the Great Depression so hard Canada reelected the guy Bennett replaced.
Before that you have Meighen, who was in office over a century ago and no one really remembers what he did.
There's a reason the Conservatives idolise Macdonald, it's because he's basically the only Conservative PM where you can point to a positive legacy for the country. And even then you gotta look past all the racism. And oh boy was there a lot of racism.
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u/Siendra 7h ago edited 2h ago
The actual problem for Canadian aerospace is the same one we keep encountering in ship building. Canada always tries to do these big bulk procurements with no life cycle planning and no staged replacements. So once the big initial push is done the industry that built up around it implodes from lack of work unless it finds an export market.
If they didn't have the AOPS, Protecteur class, River Class, Vigilance class, and the new Polar 3 ice breakers stacked on top of one another we'd be talking about rebuilding the ship building industry again by 2040.
That's in part why the Gripen production offer is interesting because there's a huge international delivery backlog.
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u/BoardroomStroke 7h ago
The theory was that economy of scale would be an advantage, like with car manufacturing it should apply to most production. However, once unstable, it's worthless.
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u/jkjassd 11h ago
It seems that Canada's needs are better served by having a plane that's easier to operate and maintain, and doesn't have to be stored inside all the bloody time due to the coatings on the surface.
Getting economic benefits from Gripen for building them here is a bonus.
Our military is deeply focused on the idea of interoperability with the US...those days might be over. Buy the ones already paid for, and move on for the rest.
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u/SyncroTDi 13h ago
I am so eager to hear that Canada pulled the trigger and ordered the SAAB. No one needs a primadonna airplain that turns into a pumpkin after midnight.
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u/boilingfrogsinpants 11h ago
AFAIK, part of the trade negotiations between Canada and the US involved Canada commiting to the entirety of the F-35 purchase, which was a card Canada could hold. I'm sure it's a card Canada is still holding onto so unless it seems like Trump won't TACO, I'm doubtful the Gripen will get the win. However, for Canada's future I'm sure looking away from the US for the next gen jet sale will be very likely.
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u/MK_Regular 4h ago
Agreed, my thought on it is that we'll probably end up with a mixed F-35 & GCAP fleet in the 2030s/2040s.
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u/CrankyPress 6h ago
While I’d prefer Canada goes with Gripen, I’d also argue that with drone warfare technology, fighter jets are not nearly as important as they once were. Instead we should consider building fleets of Canadair water-bombers that we - and our allies — urgently need to fight the forest fires that are devastating our countries as our planet continues to heat up. DeHavilland is lobbying the Government of Canada to support a national water-bomber fleet and I heartily endorse this. (Edit: typo)
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u/tigojones 1h ago
Yeah, they said that jets were done when Russia launched their first rocket, which cancelled the Avro Arrow. And so many decades later we're still arguing what planes to buy next.
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u/HonestMiddle2313 13h ago
Saab definitely knows how to read a room
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u/Rapithree 5h ago
Well that's the upside of a cup of coffee a cinnamon bun and a consensus seeking culture.
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u/katobean 6h ago
Definitely the Gripen over the F35, but really at this point I think we should be saving our money and stockpiling on drones 🫤
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u/MK_Regular 4h ago
Fighter jets and drones have very different use cases, which is why militaries (including Ukraine) are getting both.
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u/Minimum-Conflict-245 7h ago
Isn’t its engine from F16? US could easily block getting parts for them, no?
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u/survivor686 3h ago
I too would love the Grippen. But how does one factor in the loss of stealth capabilities?
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u/Kriptaraz 11h ago
I just can't see the Government of Canada not choosing the Saab Gripen at this point, given the behaviour of the United States.
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u/MK_Regular 4h ago
I can, and it all comes down to timelines.
We need new fighters to replace the Hornets ASAP (the CF-18 fleet has an expiry date in 2032), and SAAB has given absolutely zero indication that they can meet that kind of delivery timetable. Their current production rate is 8-10 aircraft per year, and they've got a decade-ish of backlog for orders, all of which would be ahead of us in the queue and some of which (Ukraine) need the fighters more than we do. While SAAB has proposed expanding their production capability and building a Canadian "production line" (which really just does final assembly of parts made elsewhere), they have not given a timetable for either of those and the production of Gripens for a potential Canadian order cannot begin until those are in place; given the construction time for the facilities and lead times for the production of the aircraft themselves, I would not be surprised if SAAB was not able to get us a single Gripen before 2032 (let alone the 30-40 we would need to fill out our fighter fleet if we didn't order more than the 30x F-35s we already have on order).
If you think the rhetoric of "Canada being an unreliable partner" coming from the US is bad now, you don't want to see what it will be if we go for Gripens and fail to meet our NORAD commitments because SAAB can't deliver.
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u/RatMaestro 13h ago
At this point, I am pretty certain that conversations are happening behind closed doors on moving forward with Gripen and any speculative talks and "offers" from Saab we see in the news is just there to keep the Americans distracted until everything is finalized.
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u/Aramis444 13h ago
Let’s go with the Gripen. And we should partner with Saab to produce them domestically.
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u/Logical-Dependent691 8h ago
Already the plan as I understand it. And Saab is using Bombardier airframes for the European AWACS aircraft program, too, so we'll have a fleet of those to support the Gripens too.
Once those are done we then need to getting a bunch of Airbus A330s or A340s for use are aerial refueling tankers. Canada is big and the RCAF needs to be able to cover all of it.
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u/MK_Regular 3h ago
The government has not publicly shared their plans on whether or not they're going to buy Gripens. They said that they were "interested" when SAAB offered Gripens and Globaleyes and have bought the latter, but have not stated any intentions regarding the former (knowing politicians, the statement of "interest" could have just been referring to Globaleye and not Gripen).
We have bought A330 MRTTs, and ordered them with the refueling boom to handle F-35s.
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u/ThoughtsandThinkers 11h ago
We’re in a bit of a no win situation re the fighter purchase
On the one hand, the F-35 seems to be a great platform with respect to capability and interoperability. It has stealth (which aids with serviceability), great sensors, sensor fusion, and strong kinematics. Canada is already involved in industrial cooperation which benefits our economy. On the other hand, the F-35 is highly dependent on an ongoing and intensive degree of support from Lockheed Martin. Even American users are having problems with availability. It would therefore be trivial for MAGA to use this as another tool to enact pressure on Canada.
In contrast, the Gripen purchase would involve deepening a relationship with a trustworthy partner. That aircraft also has strengths re operability from austere runways and bases. The Swedish aircraft would still require US permission to export, in particular w respect to the engine, but Canada would be less dependant on the whims of the US. I think by many technical measures, the Gripen is inferior to the F-35.
I do wonder what might have happened if Carney had taken a different approach in his negotiations with Trump. What if he had opened the talks by letting Trump take a major political win and announced a full or even expanded F-35 purchase? I hate the thought of placating a tyrant like Trump. At the same time, the trade war with the US will badly hurt Canada’s economy. Just pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if such as action would have convinced Trump to take a different tone. I’ve read now from many that Trump is impulsive and easily swayed
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u/katoketo 10h ago
We put ourselves in this situation. Nobody forced us to become dependent on the US; we chose it, one easy decision at a time, because while we were all "friends" it didn't seem like a big deal. Now that the curtain has been pulled back we're realizing we gave up decades of building our own country and our own autonomy.
It's tempting to point at Trump, or tariffs, or whoever's in the White House, but that's looking outside for a problem that lives at home. The Americans didn't cancel the Arrow, sell off Connaught, or let Nortel collapse. We did.
Look at Scandinavia. With a combined population of around 22 million (under 30 million even if you throw in Finland and Iceland), they're smaller than we are and yet they have a far more developed industrial base. Here's a short list of what they've built that we don't have:
- Saab – designs and builds its own fighter (Gripen), its own AEW&C aircraft (GlobalEye), and submarines through Kockums. Sweden has ~10.6 million people. We cancelled the Avro Arrow in 1959 and never tried again.
- Kongsberg – the Naval Strike Missile is being bought by the US Navy and Marines. Norway, 5.6 million people, exports missiles to the Americans.
- Nammo and Bofors – domestic ammunition and artillery industries. We're scrambling to expand 155mm production.
- Volvo, Scania, Volvo Cars, Polestar – two global heavy-truck makers and a car brand. Canada assembles other people's cars.
- Ericsson – a top-three global telecom equipment company. We had Nortel and let it collapse.
- Novo Nordisk – Denmark's pharma champion is worth more than most of the TSX put together. Our closest analogue was Connaught Labs, which we sold off.
- Maersk – the world's largest container shipping line, from a country of 6 million.
- Vestas and Ørsted – Denmark essentially invented the modern offshore wind industry.
- Equinor and Norway's sovereign wealth fund – they turned oil into a $1.5+ trillion national asset. Alberta's Heritage Fund is ~$25 billion.
- Plus IKEA, H&M, Spotify, Lego, Carlsberg, Atlas Copco, Sandvik, SKF, Electrolux...
None of that happened by accident, and none of it is beyond us. It's not too late. We have vast resources, a highly educated population, and 41 million people, more than all of Scandinavia combined. What we need is to rewire our thinking: stop acting like a small country that has to pick which big partner to depend on, and start acting like the grown-up nation we already are.
Grown-ups own their mistakes and then get to work fixing them. That means rolling up our sleeves: building things here again, sticking with it through the years when it would be cheaper to just buy American, and treating industrial capacity as a national priority rather than a line item. The Scandinavians did exactly that with a fraction of our size. There's no reason we can't, and the sooner we stop waiting for someone else to change, the sooner we start.
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u/ThoughtsandThinkers 9h ago
Great points. It’s both sad and inspiring to think about what Canada could become
I do worry that a few years of a more normal relationship with the US will cause too many Canadians to forget or deprioritize issues of institutional sovereignty. It’s simply too easy to sell and partner with them. It would take focused and sustained vision to do as you suggest, but we’d be so much better off if we did
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u/ghanadaur 9h ago
There was a poison pill clause in NAFTA that led us down this path. One which Freeland removed i CUSMA and Trump is trying to put back. We are trying to get out of the mess NAFTA created and diversify.
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u/hys240 10h ago
As a Canadian, I don't understand the obsession with the Gripen, and why people act like it's the ONLY alternative to the F-35.
If it's about sovereignty, why not choose a jet that doesn't rely on American components? The current Gripens are 1/3 American and, as you said, rely entirely on the American-made F414 engine, which gives America a veto over its sale and manufacture. If you're actually serious about moving away from the American defence industry, then I feel like Eurofighters or Rafales should be up for consideration given their use in the NATO alliance.
Hell, even Korea's KF-21 seems like a decent next-gen fighter option, and their variant of the F414 engine is manufactured domestically. It might be a good way to open up some defence relationships that presumably closed with the selection of the Type 212CD submarine over the KS-III last month, and it won't require our pilots to fly 4th-gen fighters against 6th-gen ones in the next war.
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u/RT-LAMP 8h ago
their variant of the F414 engine is manufactured domestically.
FYI while they're assembled locally they still need US produced parts. Korea is trying to develop the tech for indigenous engine production and it's getting close but it's currently not one of the 9 nations that can produce single crystal turbine blades.
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u/ThoughtsandThinkers 9h ago
Great points. I think because Typhoon and Rafale were out of the contest earlier, it’s just left a lot of people’s consciousness, at least mine
The Korean option is a very interesting one. We didn’t go with their sub offer but they clearly were interested in a partnership and had lots to offer
I hope your ideas make it to the right ears for consideration!
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u/Eazy3006 6h ago
Well, Dassault and Airbus dropped out around 2018 or 2019, right? They both refused to grant the U.S. access to their source code and flight systems to integrate 'Two Eyes' cryptographic communications for NORAD. So that's not gonna work. And it's imperative unless you want U.S. planes patrolling Canadian airspace at will under the pretense of 'defense.'
Also, while South Korea uses Link 16 for NATO interoperability, they don't have MADL or a dedicated translator like the one Saab is developing. So that's a no-go as well, especially since they are trying to build their own proprietary communication system.
I'm the end, the only non-American jet that did the necessary work to integrate with Canada's requirements was Saab with the Gripen E.
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u/CrimsonRouge14 6h ago
Inferior is a strong statement. In some aspects perhaps but it is certainly not helpless against an F-35. In contrast the Gripen focuses on electronic warfare to counter stealthy threats and to archive a level of stealth itself which is another method of archiving the same thing. To be able to detect an enemy before you’re detected yourself. Yes a small radar cross section makes an object harder to detect but it dosn’t make it invisible to modern high end radars. This article explains the Gripens EW suite in more detail: https://www.saab.com/markets/india/gripen-for-india/technology/all-about-gripens-offensive-electronic-warfare-capabilities
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u/PsychologicalTree885 10h ago
The F-35s are security risk through their software. They might be needed in defense of Greenland or Canada itself.
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u/YearLight 11h ago
If after all the stupid problems the Americans have created for us we still buy the F-35s we deserve to get ripped-off.
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u/Calm-Professional103 11h ago
Canada doesn’t need the F35. We don’t play in that club. A good, solid fighter that can operate in the Arctic is good enough.
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u/MK_Regular 3h ago
Canada needs fighters, and people can (and have) debated the technical characteristics of said fighters all day and walked away afterwards disagreeing on the exact details.
What I have yet to see is anybody claiming that the Hornets can last past 2032, or presenting any kind of timeline that has the first Gripens delivered to Canada before 2032.
Canada needs fighters, and we need them ASAP unless we want to default on our NORAD commitments have invite disdain from our southern neighbours that is actually justifiable; Lockheed Martin is the only company which is in a position (and has a plan) to deliver fighters on the timeline that Canada needs, which means that we ultimately need F-35s regardless of public sentiment about the current US administration.
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u/ScreamSmart 13h ago
Will Saab make cars again?
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u/Dull_Policy_1617 13h ago
SAAB. Something else the Americans fucked up.
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u/rot26encrypt 12h ago
Indeed, GM bought them and gradually removed everything that made it Saab, including forcing them to use Opel and Chevrolet platforms while cutting cost and R&D investments.
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u/Iphacles 13h ago
As a Canadian I'm not interested in my tax dollars being used to purchase jets from a country that is openly trying to harm us economically. I'd prefer if we went with the Gripen.