Another first for the F-35. The first landing ever in Sweden happened last week.
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Dan wrote:
Well, we could tell you, but then we would have to
From my 10 years of being based in Switzerland – I was told by buddies who were in the Swiss AF reserves that the cold war doctrine of the Air Force was that they had to be able to get the whole fleet into the air in a matter of a few minutes in case of a Soviet attack. To do this it meant dispersing fleet of aircraft widely throughout the country ie just a few fighters per airstrip for quickest possible launch. This is why there are so many military and ex military airports in such a small space. Likewise, the assumed half life of the Air Force, once the shooting started, was also a matter of minutes. So the idea was that Switzerland would have only one chance to overcome a Soviet attack and would have to do so in under half an hour.
LeSving wrote:
Another first for the F-35. The first landing ever in Sweden happened last week.
Brake chutes for a 2230 m runway?
Airborne_Again wrote:
Brake chutes for a 2230 m runway?
Why not ? 
Probably part of testing/exercise or for show? I don’t know. They didn’t use them on the videos from Finland when landing on roads. Brake chutes are normally used in the winter (icy/snowy runways) and for short field landings (< 1000 m). It’s a special Norwegian adaption, the pod on the back. What people probably don’t realize is how large these airplanes are. It’s larger and heavier than a Eurofighter for instance, and has an internal fuel capacity of the same weight as an entire F-16 It’s called Fat Amy for a reason I guess
Fighter jets need such an infrastructure that you can’t just operate them from anywhere out in the woods. You must build some “mini air bases” to support them.
Id partially disagree with that statement : are we forgetting perhaps the most famous of jets designed to be used if runways are no longer available?
Jujupilote wrote:
Fighter jets need such an infrastructure that you can’t just operate them from anywhere out in the woods. You must build some “mini air bases” to support them.
That depend on the aircraft. SAAB 39 Gripen (and before it 37 Viggen) can indeed operate from “anywhere”. The support infrastructure is mobile. Another thing is that for convenience you may want some fixed infrastructure.
Airborne_Again wrote:
That depend on the aircraft
Highly debatable. It depends most of all on the logistics, the planning and the entire geopolitical concept of defense at any given time. The Finns have used the F-18 for the last 40 years in the same manner as Sweden has used Gripens and Viggens. Forward air bases is a well known concept all the way back from from WWII. All military aircraft requires some serious maintenance, but that doesn’t mean they would not operate for weeks and months without it in war time (just the basic “oil change” which can be done anywhere). Then you have the logistics. For the aircraft to have any purpose at all, it needs fuel and weapons. There’s no way around that point. Any base, regardless of size, with no supply of fuel and weapons is useless.
If there ever was a western jet fighter plane that was a true “bush plane”, it was the F-5. This has very much to do with the size also. It’s small and light, and so are all the parts, including the engines. It’s also very easy to maintain. It can be taken apart easily because there’s no really heavy parts. In that respect the Gripen is perhaps similar. The F-18 is the “son” of the F-5. Nevertheless, the aircraft that has a the longest records of working in all kinds of conditions in just about all the wars during the last 45 years, is the F-16. It just works.
It’s very interesting what is happening to the F-16 vs Ukraine now. Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Belgium are all donating F-16s to Ukraine. I think they eventually will get close to 100 aircraft, if not more. The US will supply and train all the necessary ground infrastructure, which is a task beyond imagination. They are effectively building up an air force from scratch in months.
LeSving wrote:
Highly debatable. It depends most of all on the logistics, the planning and the entire geopolitical concept of defense at any given time. The Finns have used the F-18 for the last 40 years in the same manner as Sweden has used Gripens and Viggens. Forward air bases is a well known concept all the way back from from WWII. All military aircraft requires some serious maintenance, but that doesn’t mean they would not operate for weeks and months without it in war time (just the basic “oil change” which can be done anywhere).
You can change a Gripen engine on a road base. (I don’t know if you consider that “serious maintenance.”)
Then you have the logistics. For the aircraft to have any purpose at all, it needs fuel and weapons. There’s no way around that point. Any base, regardless of size, with no supply of fuel and weapons is useless.
For sure, but that does not require fixed installations.
What is the point to have a thread that only allows one opinion ? None.
About operating jets from dispersed locations, I am interested to know how it works given the need for :
I call that a mini air base, not a hut and a truck at the side of a highway 
The Harrier concept was FARPs – Forward Arming and Refuelling Points which spoke out from a main operating base hub. Page 55-58 of the below explains how it was to work. Many concepts and plans are coming back full circle to the Cold War times again..
