Swedish Air Force

Swedish Air Force

The Swedish Air Force was created on July 1, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. In 1957 Sweden had the world’s fourth most powerful air force, with about 1000 modern planes in front-line service. In the Cold War era, more than 600 Swedish fighter pilots were killed in crashes during peacetime exercises.

About Swedish Air Force in brief

Summary Swedish Air ForceThe Swedish Air Force was created on July 1, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. By 1945 the Swedish Air Force had over 800 combat-ready aircraft, including 15 fighter divisions. In 1957 Sweden had the world’s fourth most powerful air force, with about 1000 modern planes in front-line service. In the Cold War era, more than 600 Swedish fighter pilots were killed in crashes during peacetime exercises and training in the 1945-1991 period. In October 1960, a Lansen fighter crashed into a farmhouse and killed 7-7 people. The death toll continued to fall to 6-7 per year in the 1970s and 1990s. No fatal accident has been recorded since 1996. The Swedish Air force has seen involvement at some level in three wars, which took place in 1939–40, 1961–64 and 2011–64 in Libyan civil war. A volunteer infantry brigade took part in the Winter War in 1939-40, which was won by the Finno-Soviet Winter War. In November 1939, Sweden came to its neighbour’s assistance in the Soviet Union’s attack on Finland in November 1939.

The most short-term assistance Sweden has ever received from a neighbour has been in the form of volunteer infantry brigades in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The last volunteer brigade to take part in an outright war was the Swedish A and A brigade in the Swedish Civil War in 1961-64, which won the war for the Swedish people. It has also taken part in some of the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congo Crisis of 1961, and the Libyan Civil War of 2011. The Air Force is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is based in Stockholm and has its own air base system, Bas 60, which revolved around force dispersal of air squadrons across many wartime air bases in case of war in order to make it complicated for an opponent to destroy the air Force on the ground. It also operated Surface to Air Missiles in the airdefence role. The F8 Barkaby Svea Air Corps operated de Havilland J-28B Vampire jet aircraft in 1949 being replaced in 1953 by Saab J-29 Tunnan and in 1957 by J-34 Hunter fighters.