# History of Powered Flight in Sweden Five crafted aircraft models trace Swedish powered flight from the 1910 Blériot to the Gripen By greenlig Topic: History [Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/HOh2tmij6vVD) ## Guide ### 1. Sweden takes to the air Five model aircraft stand on this timeline table, from a wood\-and\-fabric monoplane of 1910 to a jet fighter flown with the help of a computer\. Together they tell how Sweden learned to fly under power, and then to build its own aircraft\. Drag anywhere to turn the table\. Powered flight means an engine pulls or pushes the aircraft forward, so its wings can make lift\. ### 2. 1910: the Flying Baron In 1910 Carl Cederström became Sweden's first qualified pilot and gave the country its first public air show, in Stockholm\. He flew a French Blériot XI\. It is a monoplane, which means it has a single wing, set on an open wooden frame braced with steel wires\. Cederström trained at Louis Blériot's flying school in France and was nicknamed Flygbaronen, the Flying Baron\. ### 3. 1914: Sweden's first aircraft factory In 1914 Enoch Thulin opened Sweden's first aircraft factory, in Landskrona\. His Thulin A was a Blériot XI built under licence, with a 9\-cylinder rotary engine\. In a rotary engine the whole ring of cylinders spins together with the propeller\. Start the engine to see it\. The Thulin A's rotary engine gave about 80 horsepower\. Later Thulin types were Swedish designs\. ### 4. 1948: the Flying Barrel Sweden's air force, Flygvapnet, was formed in 1926 and the Saab company in 1937\. Saab's 29 Tunnan, the Barrel, first flew on 1 September 1948\. Its round body wraps around a jet engine that breathes in through the nose\. Lift the airframe to see the engine inside\. The wings sweep back about 25 degrees, which delays the shock waves that build up near the speed of sound\. In 1954 a Tunnan set a world speed record of 977 km/h over a 500 km course\. ### 5. 1955: Draken's double delta The Saab 35 Draken first flew in 1955\. Its wing is a double delta: the inner part sweeps back 80 degrees for high speed, the outer part 60 degrees for gentler handling when slow\. With no tailplane, flaps on the back edge called elevons do the steering\. Move the slider to tilt them\. An elevon works as an elevator and an aileron in one\. The Draken could reach about twice the speed of sound, Mach 2\. ### 6. 1967: Viggen's foreplanes The Saab 37 Viggen first flew in 1967\. A small wing near the nose, called a canard, works with the big delta wing behind it to give strong lift at low speed\. Watch the canard flaps swing down: together the wings let Viggen use short runways\. Viggen is 16\.4 metres long, the largest aircraft on this table\. It served in the Swedish Air Force from 1971 to 2005\. ### 7. 1988: Gripen, flown by computer The JAS 39 Gripen first flew on 9 December 1988\. It is built to be slightly unstable, which makes it very agile, so a flight computer moves the canards and other control surfaces many times a second\. The pilot's stick tells the computer what to do: this is called fly\-by\-wire\. Gripen entered service in 1996\. The first new Gripen E was handed to the air force wing F 7 in October 2025\. ### 8. From 80 horsepower to Mach 2 In under eighty years, Swedish aircraft went from wood, fabric and wire to computer\-flown jets\. The Draken is twice as long as the Blériot, and the jets fly at about twice the speed of sound\. Each model stands in its place on the timeline\. Lengths: Blériot XI about 7\.6 m, Tunnan 10\.2 m, Draken 15\.4 m, Viggen 16\.4 m, Gripen C 14\.1 m\.