FMV Orders SEK 2.9 Billion of Future-Fighter Concept Work From Saab, Flying and Ground Demonstrators 2026–28
Stockholm, 9 September 2026
Key points
- Saab announced on 9 September an order from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, FMV, of about SEK 2.9 billion, about EUR 260 million, for continued concept work on a future fighter system; the contract runs 2026–28 with options for 2029 and 2030 and builds on the contracts of 2024 and 2025
- The work covers flying and ground-based demonstrators, advanced studies and future system concepts for crewed and uncrewed systems, in the fields Saab names as systems integration, autonomy, signature adaptation, propulsion, digital development and future production capacity
- Lars Tossman, head of Saab Aeronautics: the work is "crucial to further develop and demonstrate new technologies that will be central to future fighter system"; Saab says it builds competence, reduces technical risk and creates "freedom of action for future choices"
- The order follows the March 2024 start and an October 2025 extension of SEK 2.6 billion for 2025–27; Sweden has chosen neither a partner programme nor a date for choosing one
Sweden's procurement agency ordered about SEK 2.9 billion of future-fighter concept work from Saab on 9 September, the third award in thirty months, funding flying and ground demonstrators for crewed and uncrewed systems through 2028 with options to 2030 while the country keeps its choice of programme open.
The order is the continuation Saab's release describes: further development and demonstration of technologies for a future fighter system, with flying and ground-based demonstrators, advanced studies and concept work spanning crewed and uncrewed aircraft. The six fields Saab lists are the ones a national programme would need to hold in-house, from systems integration and autonomy through signature adaptation and propulsion to digital development and the production capacity to build what is designed. The stated purposes are competence, lower technical risk and, in Saab's words, freedom of action for future choices in Sweden's air-combat capability.
The sequence is a March 2024 start, an October 2025 extension of SEK 2.6 billion for 2025–27, and now SEK 2.9 billion for 2026–28 with two option years, on hartpunkt's and Saab's accounts. Saab's Gripen F, the two-seat variant, flew for the first time on 28 August. Sweden has not joined GCAP or the French successor to FCAS, and Airbus was reported in June to have sounded Saab out for the German programme that replaced the Franco-German one; no Swedish decision on a partner, or a date for one, has been announced.
Three awards in thirty months add up to a national programme that Sweden declines to call one, and propulsion in the list is the tell. Gripen has always flown on an American core, the F404-derived RM12 and now the F414, so a Swedish concept line that names propulsion among its fields is studying the one subsystem the country has never owned, which is what a future partner negotiation would be about. Demonstrators in hand are what let a state join a programme as a contributor of technology rather than a buyer of aircraft, which is the position Saab held toward Airbus in June and the position this order preserves to 2030. Signal No. 142 carries the order beside the first flight of Germany's F-35A.
