This Tuesday (24), Brazil began using its F-39 Gripen fighter planes to defend in the event of an attack.
In practice, the air defense alert in the Central Highlands, as the operation is called, officially puts them into action almost 12 years after the signing of the contract to purchase aircraft of Swedish origin, at the end of 2014.
Currently, the FAB (Brazilian Air Force) has ten Gripen based at Anápolis Air Base (GO).
It is from the city of Goiás, where the 1st Jaguar GDA (Air Defense Group) is located, where the fighters will take off if necessary.
The rural area of Anápolis is just five minutes from Brasilia in a Gripen flight, capable of reaching 2,400 km/h — approximately twice the speed of sound.
Opened in 1972 to house the first supersonic fighters to equip the FAB, the French Dassault 3, the base was designed to protect the heart of the country.
On November 13th last, the Sheet accompanied — for the first time since the arrival of the Gripen in the country, in 2020 and incorporated into the Brazilian Air Force in 2022 — the entire .
An 11th unit of the Gripen is in Gavião Peixoto, in the interior of São Paulo, where the Swedish company Saab and Embraer maintain a factory to assemble a nationalized version of the fighter — the first model is scheduled to be presented on March 25th, in a ceremony that should be attended by the top brass of the Air Force and President Lula.
The Brazilian program foresees 36 Gripen, eight of them with two seats — they are called E and F, respectively.
According to the initial schedule, the fighters were due last year, including the 15 planned to be produced in the interior of São Paulo. The current forecast is for final delivery in 2032.
The new fighter will be used in Brasília’s air defense less than a week after the Sheet show that the government asked the Armed Forces for one following the recent capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro by the United States.
The aircraft underwent a decisive phase of testing that certified its military capacity. On the 6th, for example, the FAB and Saab carried out the first bomb launches with the Gripen in training in Brazil. The exercise was carried out at Natal Air Base.
In total, 15 hours of training were carried out with both symmetrical and asymmetrical launch configurations.
Last November, the FAB carried out a missile launch for its new fighter. It was fired at an estimated cost of R$12.4 million, against a drone near the coast of Rio Grande do Norte.
The Meteor is the most advanced model of its type on the market, of a more recent generation than the models of its type in Latin America, the American AIM-120C used by Chile and the Russian R-77, operated by Peru and Venezuela. Brazil had nothing like it.
Then, in Rio de Janeiro, the first shots were fired with a 27 mm German cannon. In the same period there was also a flight by KC-390 freighters.
“The latest generation multi-mission fighter is used in air defense, ground attack and reconnaissance missions, bringing together modern systems, sensors and weapons, high availability and low operational cost”, states the FAB, in a statement.
Brazil’s contract to purchase the 36 fighter jets was estimated at the time at US$4.5 billion (around R$23.7 billion at current prices).
