So Sweden, we all know is a pretty neutral kind of country
It's one that doesn't really start a lot of fights, but did you know that it had an army and an airforce?
Yeah
For some people that might shock them but for others you guys might already know that and that's the theme of this video guys
We're gonna look at the Swedish Air Force and find out a little bit about its history its size and how many pilots have done?
the mile-high club
Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm kidding. That's not we're not gonna talk about the mile-high club
We're just gonna talk about the Air Force and its history in that stuff. So let's get rolling by the way guys
My name is Dave Walpole
Welcome to FTD facts! The channel where I look at people cultures and places from all around the world
And I'm excited to learn about the Air Force of Sweden
I like history and all that sort of stuff
But what's more exciting about this is this is a regular part of our Swedish military playlist
Which you guys want to check it out?
It's gonna be in the description box below or at the end of the video or I'm gonna mention it in a couple of cards
Throughout it so you can check it out at any time
So to give you a bit of a backstory when it comes to the Air Force
We all know that Sweden is very very neutral
It's one of those countries. That just doesn't want to pick
Fights with people as a matter of fact Sweden has been neutral for quite a long time
it hasn't officially declared any military engagements since
1814 however, truth be told that does not mean that Sweden doesn't know how to defend itself as a matter of fact
It's quite impressive when it comes to its Air Force because although Sweden hasn't declared any military engagements
It has been a part of the Congo crisis the Bosnian war the war in Afghanistan
The Libyan Civil War some engagements throughout world war two and currently the Mali crisis
And of course before I get into talking about that including something like world war 2
Which I know some of you guys are like ha
How did sweet man it's to stay out of the fight in world war 2?
Well, it kind of actually didn't I'm gonna get into that in terms of air force in a little bit
But before we do any of that we got to go all the way back to the past and we got to go before
1926 when the air force was officially formed we're going way back before that
Ok, so we don't need to go all the way back to 1893 when Augustus Solomon Aundrey made the first balloon flight over
Stockholm no, we ain't gone that far back. However, we do have to mention a man named
I'll set a storm who was the first Swedish man to get his pilot's certificate in France, and this happened in 1910
And of course only about a year later. That was when Sweden got its first military
Aircraft of course. It really didn't have any guns on it
But the thing was it was meant for the military as a matter of fact
It was meant for the Navy and this plane was a blurry or 11, which was from 1909
And as a matter of fact, it was made by asked and naira
Which actually was the first company to be contracted by Sweden for military aircraft?
oddly enough for the use of this plane
The agreement was that they had to send a man named the lieutenant old owl back to aviation school in England which thank God
This guy actually decided to do it because he went over to England use his own money
Trained in the program and then in December of nineteen eleven Sweden got its first military plane
also
I should mention that these burly au planes they were actually unfortunately a very short term they were only used until about a
mount 1916 and then they said Hawk craft we need better ones because these ones
Ain't that good?
now when we look at the history of Sweden's
aviation in terms of military one thing that is a
little bit of a confusion is the fact that
There was an aviation group within the army and there was an aviation group in the Navy as well
in which because of that in the early days of Sweden's aviation history there was you know planes and
Balloons I should say because balloons were part of the aviation core
They were part of either the army or they're part of the Navy
It was rather confusing as a matter of fact when it comes to balloons, although they're not really part of jets
but they do make up the first aviation of
Sweden they were used until about 1936 when the last balloon flight ever took place for the military. Yeah. That's right
You've got balloons now
we just use them for birthdays or
That weird dinner party that you do if you guys ever done one of those where you go in the dinner party and go up
In the balloon, I think that would suck because I'm like, man
I gotta go to the bathroom real bad now for planes by the year of
1913 they established what is known as the Maryland's flag Vicent or the special?
aviation Corps as well within that same year the first
Naval training school for aviation was built and that aviation school operated out of the four known as Oscar
Frederiksborg and for that let's move a little bit forward and let's look at World War one do they participate? Did they not?
well
That's an interesting question truth be told a lot of planes during the First World War in Sweden were classified as reconnaissance planes
And it's also been said that most if not, all the planes were not armed during the first world war
however
Obviously the war ended and things changed shortly after that because it was on July 1st
1926 that Sweden birth it's very own Air Force and this was because what they did was they merged the naval and the Army
Air Force units or the aviation units into one big unit making it no longer confusing. It was great
But of course right around the corner we had World War thus it was a big one contrary to what most people believe
Sweden during that time had actually over 800 pieces of aircraft and approximately 15 fighter wings
they also say that throughout the entire war there was approximately
250 pilots that were killed in incidents that might have revolved around combat of some sort and you know what?
I can't really forget about this because this was really important because during the Second World War a lot of
pilots that were part of the Air Force
Volunteered to help Finland. They took part in the continuation war the Lapland war and the winter war
I felt like Finland had like a million Wars going on in a very short amount of time
And of course the group for this was the very famous group known as the f19
But of course after the war it ended because the United States and all of Europe had a problem with Russia
Sweden became a very very important country and as a matter of fact in 1946 Sweden had a major push to
Modernize its air force because the Cold War was coming around the corner and yeah
Russia was a bit of a threat with that the Air Force received a lot of different aircraft from different countries around the world
but for example, one of the more modernized planes was the p-51 Mustang and the
j28 a de Havilland vampire
Which was the first jet fighter to ever be introduced into Sweden?
Especially in the terms of a military jet plane and throughout history
They say that Sweden possessed about 70 of these individual aircraft
however
Unfortunately for these fighters they were still Hynde in the technology as during the 1950's technology was growing fast
however, in 1951 things changed as the Air Force received the SI a
B-29 TuneIn and this was the first ever Swedish made plane
that was made by a Swedish company for the Swedish Air Force that could theoretically
Compete with the rest of the planes around the world as a matter of fact these were so popular that they had
661 of these aircrafts in total and they had quite a long service being retired in
1976 also, by the way, here's an amazing fact that I did not know in
1957 Sweden had the fourth-largest air force out of any country in the entire world. I
was blown away by that fact, I was like what I never expected Sweden to I mean, it's got a smaller population than
America and Russia and even India and I think even Britain I'm not too sure but I'm like what that's crazy
Which makes you kind of wonder a little bit what happened to all the air force that at once had well
I mean obviously cold war's gone
So, you know
You don't need as many planes, but with that in mind during the Cold War there was one really interesting incident
This was known as the Catalina affair in which the Swedish Douglas dc-3 known as TP 79
lost contact over the area of guts Cassander
This happened in June of 1952 and it was only a few days later when Sweden launched a Catalina aircraft to go
Looking for the missing Douglas dc-3. Of course that Catalina was also shot down by Russian Air Force
However, luckily for the crew of the Catalina they managed to get out of the plane and make it into West Germany
however
truth of what really happened did not come to light until
1990 when it was said that the TP
79 Douglas was spying on Russia and Russia gave the command to shoot it down. Also a little fYI in 2004
They did find and raise the wreck on top of that the pilots were recovered and their bodies were identified
However, let's go back to the 1950s because we got to talk more about the Cold War
Hmm because during that time Sweden had introduced what is known as the bass 60 air base system and the road
Runway system where planes could land and take off quickly if need be the BAE or the bass or bas?
60 system
evolved into what is known as the bas 90 system a little bit of information on this they had dozens of air bases throughout the
Country they were small and large
However nowadays because the Cold War has come to an end these bases no longer exist and some of them were actually sold to private
Owners also it was said throughout the entire Cold War Sweden had lost approximately
600 pilots in total and of course in 1961 1964
This isn't really a bad thing. But Sweden also lended a hand and the Congo crisis as for aircraft
I do want to mention some really remarkable pieces of technology that were from this era
for example
the SI a
B35 Drakon was a major fighter being capable of going really high
Altitudes and was even capable of holding its own in a firefight
and as a matter of fact, this thing was so impressive that it stayed in service from 1959 to
1999 40 years. That's quite a lot for one fighter as well
They also had their workhorse fighter known as the SI a B 37 Viggen which lasted from 1979 to?
2004 also after the Cold War came to an end in
1992 Sweden invested in a new aircraft for its Air Force and that was the SA a B
39 Gripen and it's still in use today and of course because the Cold War is gone
A lot of things have been reduced to give you an idea of how much it has in
1995 they had over 400 pieces of aircraft in today's world
It's like under a hundred and fifty that's right, or at least in 2005 it was reported
They have under 150 and in today's world to give you an idea of what they do have
They approximately have 72 fighters in which they are all the sa a B jazz 39 Gripen
They have one early warning control aircraft, which is an AWAC. And that is two of them which are the sa a B
340s. Of course, they have one tanker, which is a Hercules class aircraft on top of that
They have two reconnaissance which are the Gulfstream fours nine different transports five of them are Hercules and two of them are the Boeing c-17
S these are the largest of the aircrafts that they have that are classified as transports, by the way
Helicopters though. They don't really have any
attack helicopters
They do have utility helicopters though and quite a bit these come in at 52 which are a combination of light and heavy
utility
They're Blackhawks and nh90s though can be mounted with machine guns and stuff like that that can
Have some form of combat as for trainers, they do have 71 of these 23 of them are the Griffins as well
and of course they have five major Air Force bases in which for the fighters they are located in the
scarab org Air Force Base the Bleak Ling Air Force Base and the
Norrbotten Air Force Base as for the size of how many people are in the Air Force. It's really unknown
But all of these are under the command of Major General Matt's helgesson
also
I just forgot to mention that when it comes to their technology
Within the Air Force a lot of their aircraft is going through a major modernization program that Griffins are getting upgraded
And on top of that they are looking into getting unmanned vehicles as well. So there you have it guys
that is me looking at the Air Force of Sweden before you guys get out of here and go crazy on to other videos if
You guys want to learn more about just military forces of sweet. Non Aligned just did that it just made sense
I guess I was gonna say what I've done is you can click this card right here
I've put everything into a nice little playlist for you guys. So we've talked about Special Forces
I've talked about the army. I think but a bunch of different videos that are just about different units and military history
So your military buffs from Sweden you'll want to check this out and look at our videos within that playlist. Other than that guys
It's also in the description box below and it'll be at the end of the video
but yo
feel free to subscribe to the channel if you guys are liking what we're doing and
On top of that just leave a comment or a suggestion for a future FTD facts video down there in the comment section box
But than that, I'm Dave wopo and I will see you guys the next one. Okay, cool. Oh
And by the way before you guys get out of here
There's also playlists here on Sweden if you guys just want to learn more about the great things of the country
I've done tons of videos on
Great facts and unknown things about the country itself. So feel free to check that out
You got that military playlist here, and I'll see you guys the next one. Okay. Have a great day. Bye. Bye