It is the fourth model of supersonic fighter operated by the Brazilian Air Force, a branch created in 1941 that has been flying this type of plane since 1973.
That year, the French Dassault Mirage-3 debuted in Brazil, the most classic of the Cold War delta-wing combat aircraft, a configuration that allows greater efficiency at supersonic speeds — that is, above Mach 1, or 1,225 km/h at sea level.
Delta wings survive today in models such as the Gripen itself, the French Rafale, the Chinese J-10 and the .
The plane was purchased in an initial batch of 17 aircraft after the USA vetoed the acquisition of sophisticated American models, such as the F-4 Phantom-2, precisely by the military dictatorship that had come to power in 1964 with the support of Washington.
Later, other planes were acquired, reaching a total of 22 interceptors, whose main mission was to protect the central power in Brasília. To do this, they were stationed in Anápolis, in Goiás, around 150 km from the capital, around five minutes away by supersonic flight.
It was a pair of single-seater Mirages that made the first aerial intercept in the history of Brazil, on April 9, 1982, when they escorted a Soviet Il-62 plane operated by Cuba that invaded the airspace towards Buenos Aires, where diplomats were going to help Moscow’s anti-communist dictatorship against the United Kingdom, during the Falklands War.
The Mirages were complemented by another supersonic aircraft, this one of American origin, the F-5, in 1975. Three batches of these aircraft were purchased, totaling 79 planes, and 11 more were purchased separately from Jordan in the late 2000s.
The F-5, in its versions for one pilot (E) and two aviators (F), underwent modernization in the 2000s and continues to be the mainstay of the FAB. There are 40 models in the Brazilian fleet, heading towards retirement with the arrival of the Gripen.
Versatile, the fighters initially for aerial combat covered the gap as interceptors in Anápolis until between the retirement of the Mirage-2000 in 2013 and 2022. They are still in use, not least because they are able to employ missiles and cannons.
The French Mirage-2000, the third Brazilian supersonic model, was a buffer solution found by the FAB when the Mirage-3s expired. The search for a definitive replacement had begun in 2001, during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB) government, when the military began the process to acquire
The competition, called FX, was fierce and, which would be nationalized by Embraer according to an agreement with the French manufacturer Dassault, and the previous version of the Gripen, the C/D, which had a range not compatible with Brazilian needs.
They were also in, but in the end everything was postponed until the process was reopened in 2006, then called F-X2.
12 Mirage-2000 were from France in 2005, an evolution of the Mirage-3 that is in operation in the European country, the Middle East, India, Peru, Taiwan and Ukraine, among other places. The cells, as the jargon says, were already close to the end of their operational life.
The Gripen was chosen in 2013, the US F/A-18, in a dispute also with the French Rafale, the replacement for the Mirage family. The American ended up losing due to the scandal in which it was discovered that Washington had spied on the then president ().
The Swede is the first supersonic model to be produced in Brazil, which has already assembled subsonic fighters such as the AMX. Of the 36 purchased, 15 will be completed at the Embraer factory in Gavião Peixoto (SP).
