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| Saab 35 Draken /19fortyfive.com |
International Military - Saab 35 Draken is one of the fighter aircraft that was developed during the era after the Second World War. The first Saab-35A prototype finally went into the air on October 25, 1955. Later, the J35A became an early production model.
Due to the historically unproven tailless design, the aircraft experienced a number of problems early in its life, including a number of super stalls. However, as reported by 19fortyfive, pilots were eventually trained to prevent that from happening.
Then, from extensive pilot training emerged what is known as the "cobra maneuver," The cobra maneuver is where an aircraft flying at moderate speed can suddenly lift its nose to a vertical position and slightly cross the vertical. Then, pause the aircraft, before performing full-body air brake and then descending back to its normal position.
During development, Aircraft engineer Erik Bratt, together with a team of over 500 technicians, had come to the idea of a unique “double delta” wing shape. This comes after learning different ways of packing fuel and equipment. Draken, which translates to “dragon” but is actually meant to be a “kite” for the shape of its wings.
It also became the first aircraft to successfully use the dual delta wing design. Recognized as a large triangular wing that is widest at the rear and tapers inwards closer to the nose of the aircraft, this offers many benefits.
The first is that the delta wing has more fuel volume than the conventional wing. Not only that, it can also be structurally stronger.
Launching the National Interest, the Saab 35 was also quite successful in exporting. In this case, several neighboring countries Sweden, Finland and Denmark became the operator of the aircraft. In fact, the United States used twelve Saab 35s previously owned by Denmark as trainer aircraft until 2009.
Austria also acquired several dozen unique Saab 35s. Since the Austrians were prohibited from using air-to-air missiles by the Austrian State Treaty, they equipped their Saabs with internal cannons for air-to-air combat.