Legendary Saab 29: Aircraft created specifically for war with Russia

The second turbouable Swedish fighter was very successful. The pilots noted its maneuverability and high characteristics. Saab 29 did not heal the glory of the F-35 or F-22, but at the beginning of the Cold War, Sweden was able to build an aircraft that could resist Russia if it were needed. Fortunately, the Third World War has not begun, but we can still admire this fantastic plane. Focus translated Peter Suchyu's article about Swedish SAAB 29.

Saab 29, Cold War Child and the first fighter with an arrow -shaped wing built in Western Europe, was quite deservedly deserved by the nickname "barrel". Developed in the late 1940s, it became the second after SAAB 21r a battle aircraft with a turbojet engine developed in Sweden.

The British turbojet engine Ghost enabled the Swedish pioneer of Larsing Brising and his designer team to lift the bar and achieve higher characteristics by applying an arrow -shaped wing with a slope of 25 degrees back in a new aircraft. The first -generation jet fighter was a single, single -engine aircraft with one central air intake located in the nasal part and a bubble.

Sweden relied on German studies of World War II, dedicated to arrow wings, and this is easy to see the influence of the project Messchmitt M3 P1101 Luftwaffe. There was no great difficulty in the team, and the project was rapidly moving forward. The pilots were estimated by Saab 29 as fast and maneuverable, and its roll speed and turn radius were recognized as outstanding. The pilots also coped well with a narrow chassis.

Saab 29 was armed in 1951 and was well suited to perform the functions of both the fighter and the fighter-bomber. It remained in operation until the early 1970s and during these two decades it regularly modernized, which only improved its characteristics. A total of 661 SAAB J29 Tunnans aircraft was created, and many models 308 B, D and E were upgraded to J29F standards.

First, they are equipped with a single centrifugal Svenska FlyGomotor RM2 (De Havilland Ghost), early models of aircraft could still accelerate up to 1060 km/h. The speed was 2286 meters per minute, the maximum height is 13 716 meters, the flight range - 6048 km. The latter option, the J29F model, was equipped with a Svenska Flygmotor RM2b engine with a forth -chamber that increased the speed, maximum height and range of aircraft.

Saab 29 was armed with four 20 mm Swedish guns HISPANO MKV under the nasal part of the fuselage and equipped with eight inner nodes of rocket pylons suspension and two external nodes for dumping tanks or inflammatory bombs. Unlike many Swedish aircraft times of the Cold War, which never participated in real fighting, SAAB J29 Tunnan was one of the fighter-bombers who served in the United Nations peacekeeping forces (UN) Nations in the Congo) - in the former Belgian Congo from 1961 to 1964.

These actions became the first and last combat experiences for J29, and although the area of ​​the Jungle of Central Africa was very different from Scandinavia, the "flying barrel" was effectively used to strike the enemy for terrestrial purposes, providing both gun and rocket fire without any loss. Interestingly, after UN operations, the aircraft were placed in the Congo on scrap and not transported back to Sweden. Today, only three "barrels" have been preserved in the J29F configuration.

One of them, which was in service with Austria, was exhibited at the Museum of Military History in Vienna, the other is at the French Museum of Aeronautics, located in the former Paris-Le-Burge Airport, and the third at the Swedish Cold War Aviation Museum in Gothenburg. Peter Suchyu is a journalist from Michigan, who has participated in the creation of more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites for his twenty -year journalistic career, publishing more than 3,000 materials.