At 09:40 on the morning of 28 August 2026, a twin-tailed shape lifted off the runway at Linköping and climbed into a grey Swedish sky. Forty minutes later it was back on the ground — and the Gripen family had a new member. The two-seat Gripen F had just flown for the first time.

In the back seat sat a Brazilian. That detail is the whole story. The Gripen F is the tandem-seat sibling of the single-seat Gripen E, and Brazil — not Sweden — is its launch customer. Saab chief test pilot Jakob Högberg flew from the front; Brazilian Air Force test pilot Lieutenant Colonel Abdon de Rezende Vasconcelos rode in the rear cockpit, hands close to a second set of controls.

Saab said the sortie verified the aircraft’s core systems and initial handling. Nothing dramatic happened, which is exactly what a first flight is supposed to look like.

A two-seater built for Brazil

Brazil signed for the Gripen in 2014 and has since built the first Gripen assembly line outside Sweden, at Embraer’s plant in Gavião Peixoto. Brazil calls the single-seater the F-39E and the two-seater the F-39F. Of the 36 aircraft on order — 28 single-seat, eight twin-seat — roughly a dozen have been delivered since 2020.

The first Gripen F was formally rolled out at a ceremony earlier in 2026. Getting it into the air is the milestone that opens the real work: a flight-test campaign to clear the twin-seat airframe through its envelope.

Why a second seat still matters

Modern fighters are flown solo, so why build a two-seater at all? Two reasons. The obvious one is training — an instructor in the back seat shortens the road from student to combat-ready pilot. The less obvious one is the mission: a second crew member can manage sensors, electronic warfare and weapons on the most demanding sorties, leaving the pilot to fly and fight.

For Brazil, the F is also an industrial prize. The programme came bundled with technology transfer, and Brazilian engineers have been embedded in the two-seat effort from the start — part of why a Brazilian test pilot, not just a Swedish one, was aboard for the maiden flight.

Was geschieht als Nächstes?

The Gripen F now joins the flight-test fleet at Linköping. Saab and Brazil will spend the coming months expanding the aircraft’s cleared envelope before the type enters Brazilian service. It is a quiet milestone with a loud subtext: a mid-sized country co-developing and helping to fly a front-line fighter is a club with very few members.

Sources: Saab newsroom; FlightGlobal; The War Zone; Air Data News.