Demonstrated here for the first time, and adding to a long list of firsts in Swedish military aviation, is the JAS 39 Gripen's datalink system. Sitting in the cockpit of the back-up Gripen, Saab chief test pilot Berndt Weimer explained how the CelsiusTech datalink can track the Gripen's sister ship as it goes through its energetic flight demonstration, and also flows a great deal of other information into the cockpit.

Up to four Gripens can be online with the datalink. Automatically, the aircraft share their position, altitude, speed, fuel and weapons status and target information, including each fighter's priority target. The information appears on a "God's-eye view" display on the fighter's tactical situation display screen.

It is a simple display, using clear and sensible technology, but its impact is revolutionary. Swedish air force pilots are finding that they can coordinate tactics over any distance and in any weather, says Weimer. A formation can spread out over miles of sky and hit the enemy from both sides. "In the old days, you made decisions on the ground. If you could communicate by radio and weren't jammed, you could make simple changes to tactics."

The datalink transmits in short bursts and is almost unjammable--"You really have to be between the aircraft to jam it," Weimer said.

If two pilots have selected the same target, they can readily see which of them is set up better on the enemy, and one pilot will switch to another target.

Combine the datalink with AMRAAM, and sneakier tricks are possible. An adversary detects a Gripen tracking him on radar, 70 miles away. What he does not see is the other Gripen, closer in, silent and in the weeds, ready to launch an AMRAAM guided by its colleague. As the fighter pilot's maxim has it, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying hard enough."

The Gripen datalink is distinctly better than the NATO Link 16, or the simpler IDM used by the F-16A/B Mid-Life Update, according to Weimer. These links do not show the fighters' weapon and fuel status or indicate which targets have been locked up. Even so, datalinks have already achieved some surprising upsets in recent air combat exercises-including fights where F-15s were mauled by Belgian F-16 MLUs and RAF Tornado F.3s.

By Bill Sweetman