SPECIAL HOBBY SAAB J-21A Review

From the late 1930s and early 1940s, with thewar in Europe raging around them andedging ever closer to its borders, the Flygvapnet had ordered Seversky P-35A aircraft, alongside Vultee Vanguards, but only sixty of the former and none of the latter were received.

- Bruce Leyland-Jones 

Fiercely independent and determined to remain not only neutral, but secure, Sweden took its lessons from the warring world around it and used its resources and not insubstantial intellect and imagination to forge a strong military and air force and became more determined to create its own military aircraft, realising the dangers inherent upon depending upon others. Of their two fighting products, the FFVS J-22 and the SAAB J-21, it was the latter that showed the most promise and innovation.

Taking into account the terrain and the need for both a fighter and ground attack aircraft, a twin-boom design was approved, with a pusher engine, providing good forward visibility and a facility to load lots of guns into the nose, together with a wide tricycle undercarriage and all of the advantages that implied. Because of the pusher engine, an ejection seat was designed from the outset. This was actually powered by gunpowder, having been developed by Swedish gun manufacturer Bofors!

As time progressed, it became obsolete as a fighter, being replaced by surplus North American Mustangs, but remained a very stable gun platform with excellent low speed flying characteristics and was a superb ground attack aircraft, a role in which it ended service flying in 1954. That said, when Sweden obtained the early De Havilland Goblin jet engine, it was within the sturdy body of the J-21A that this new powerplant was installed, creating the J-21R. (Of note, perhaps only our own Percival Provost was equally happy to accept such a radical change of powerplant, with comparatively minor changes to the rest of the airframe, to become the Jet Provost).