Saab 37AU Fighter Viggen: A21 − Australian JA 37 derivative (1970 − 1976)

[GTX]

And Hellyer's erstwhile mentor, Northrop's T.V. Jones, had always wanted the F-5 to be a light carrier fighter

Well here you go... :

 

[blockhaj]

isnt this going off-topic

 

[GTX]

It is and I apologise. It was meant as a humorous diversion based on the comment about F-5s as light carrier fighters. back to regular programming...

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I just came across this proposed Viggen variant for the RAAF. A very interesting what-if and an extremely ambitious one at that.

Is there any information on what radar was planned to be used? To take advantage of the AIM-54 something powerful would be required. I don't believe the improved radar used by the JA-37 interceptor had entered service by that time, and even then I doubt that had the range of F-14's AWG-9 due to simple size/power limits.

The plan to redesign the intakes seems odd since the JA-37 is supposedly already capable of going over Mach 2 and how much speed you could get beyond that probably won't matter very much, since the Viggen isn't carrying some exceptional amount of fuel.

 

[blockhaj]

Is there any information on what radar was planned to be used? To take advantage of the AIM-54 something powerful would be required. I don' believe the improved radar used by the JA-37 interceptor had entered service by that time and even then, I also doubt that had the range of F-14's AWG-9 due to simple size/power limits.

Not given by any sources i have, but the nose on the scale mockup is smaller than the JA 37s, so they probably proposed some american radar unit.

The plan to redesign the intakes seems odd since the JA-37 is supposedly already capable of going over Mach 2 and how much speed you could get beyond that probably won't matter very much, since the Viggen isn't carrying some exceptional amount of fuel.

The new intake was on behalf of the Aussies iirc. The JA 37 was capable of mach 2 but it couldn't achieve such speeds on the regular. The oblique intakes would supposedly help it reach and perform better at such speeds. It was noted however that the Aussies asked for a lot which from a Swedish POV was seen as unnecessary.

 

[Archibald]

The Mirage 2000D / 2000N had something similar. Being low level attack variants, the "mices" (typical of all Mirages) were fixed in place; restricting top speed at altitude to Mach 1.4.