Brazil announced this Thursday (4) that it will buy up to 20 more Saab Gripen E fighters, a single-seater model produced both in and in Gavião Peixoto (SP). If carried out, the aircraft fleet ordered in 2014 will increase to 56 aircraft.
The revelation caught people linked to the program by surprise, not least because the Defense budget scenario is austere: the ministry was the hardest hit by the spending block announced last week, losing R$4.36 billion this year.
Countries have not committed to a timeline. “In Defense, everything takes time,” said the holder of the portfolio in Brazil, José Mucio Monteiro, alongside his Nordic colleague Pal Jonson.
The initial goal of the FAB (Brazilian Air Force), when it designed the renewal program for its combat aviation in the late 1990s, was to have 120 advanced fighters. In the end, in 2013, signing the contract the following year.
In 2022, the then Force commander, Carlos Almeida Baptista Junior, told Sheet who wanted From then on, a tied sale was negotiated, also revealed by this newspaper, in which Brazil would receive another 14 Gripen, while Sweden would buy 4 C-390 transport aircraft.
So far, the Swedes have fulfilled their part, announcing the acquisition of the planes, while Brazil has not yet defined how it will purchase the new fighters, which according to Jonson will be model E, for one pilot.
The initial idea was to carry out an amendment in 2014. The contract is currently valued at R$29.5 billion. By law, the maximum possible is 25%, or R$7.3 billion, which would be financed over the years.
There are no details on whether this model will be used. The report sent a question to the Ministry of Defense and has not yet received a response.
The topic is complex and politically thorny, especially in a presidential election year. Difficulties in justifying the expenditure were at the heart of the postponement of the decision in the 2001 tender and the postponement of the .
The original budget for the current program already had 57% of the expected money spent by March, but only delivered 11 of the 36 planes for operation. Until 2025 there were 12 amendments to the contract which, according to the FAB, increased spending to the equivalent of six more planes.
This was always attributed to budgetary hiccups that existed, but were not the rule with Gripen. The plane has one of the programs with the best execution of values predicted in the . This year, there is an authorized allocation of R$1.36 billion.
Another determining factor is the time and cost of developing the two-seat Gripen E and F. The planes are almost all new compared to the previous generation of the fighter. There was an unprecedented technology transfer program involved, which also increases the difficulties.
Thus, in theory it is cheaper and faster to make the plane with the more mature product and the line gaining pace. In Gavião Peixoto, where the Gripen is made in Brazil, the line will also be responsible for the 15 E models ordered by Colombia — the 2 F fighters ordered will be manufactured in Linköping.
Mucio said that “perhaps 20 Gripen” should be made in Brazil, which would imply an expansion of production capacity. Previously, Saab had said that this would happen due to the general demand for the Gripen, which received an order for 20 planes from Ukraine last week, although the focus of the Brazilian line would be Latin America.
The announcement also makes no reference to at least 12 older Gripen C/Ds to fill the hole in ground attack capacity that will be lost with the retirement of the AMX planes, scheduled for 2027.
As the agreement with Ukraine provides for the donation of 16 of the 96 C/D fighters that Sweden operates to the country at war with Russia, it is unlikely that Brazil will achieve the same — there would be a loss to the defense of the Nordic nation.
The two ministers also confirmed that Saab will open a new research and development center in the country, in São José dos Campos (SP), the city where Embraer was founded — which is the Swedes’ main partner in manufacturing the Gripen E in Brazil, whose first plane was ready in March.
Mucio was also in Sweden for the launch of another fruit of collaboration between the companies, the Gripen F. The aircraft took five years to be made in Linköping with the help of Brazilians. The FAB will receive eight of them.
“These are clear and direct results of cooperation,” said Minister Jonson, who also announced 2028 as the arrival date of the Swedish Air Force’s first Embraer C-390.
