{"id":18858922,"date":"2026-09-01T11:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/saab-210-lilldraken-double-delta-testbed-draken\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T06:43:00","slug":"saab-210-lilldraken-double-delta-testbed-draken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/saab-210-lilldraken-double-delta-testbed-draken\/","title":{"rendered":"Saab 210 Lilldraken: The Half-Size Delta That Proved the Draken"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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Erik Bratt&rsquo;s double delta had an inner section swept at 80 degrees and an outer panel at 57. For comparison, the wing on Saab&rsquo;s own <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/saab-29-tunnan\/\">J 29 Tunnan<\/a> was swept 25 degrees.<\/p><p>The wind tunnel could not settle whether it would work. So Saab built a small one and put a man in it.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:26px 0;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#222\">Quick Facts<\/p><table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Type<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Saab 210, formally Flygplan 210, unofficially Lilldraken or Little Dragon<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Role<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Manned sub-scale aerodynamic testbed for the double-delta wing of the Saab 35 Draken<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Scale<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Roughly 70 per cent of the full-size aircraft, though sources vary between 70 and 75<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Wing<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Double delta, 80 degrees inner sweep and 57 degrees outer<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Built<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Exactly one, construction number 210-1<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>First flight<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">21 January 1952 from Link&ouml;ping, flown by chief test pilot Bengt Olow<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Powerplant<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">One Armstrong Siddeley Adder turbojet of about 1,050 lbf<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Configurations<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">210A with nose intakes, then 210B with intakes moved aft and a drag chute added<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Flying career<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Roughly 900 flights over four years; retired 1956<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;white-space:normal;vertical-align:top;min-width:130px\"><strong>Preserved<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;white-space:normal\">Flygvapenmuseum, Malmen, Link&ouml;ping<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Before the aeroplane, a model on a string<\/h2><p>The 210 was not the first attempt. Saab&rsquo;s aerodynamicists, working partly under the German aerodynamicist Hermann Behrbohm, began with a pulsejet-powered double-delta model flown on a tether, whirling in a circle while cameras recorded it. Small scale models were flown before that.<\/p><p>The results were suggestive and inconclusive. A model on a wire cannot tell you what an aircraft will do on approach with a pilot trying to land it, and low-speed handling was precisely the unknown. A double delta with that much sweep was expected to behave strangely at high angles of attack, which is where landings happen.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/saab-210-lilldraken-double-delta-testbed.jpg\" alt=\"Saab 210 Lilldraken, the double-delta testbed for the Draken\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The Saab 210. The purpose was not speed but low-speed handling: the question was whether a pilot could land a double delta at all. Photo: Miliseum via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Built cheap, deliberately<\/h2><p>Nothing about the 210 was precious. It existed to answer one question as quickly and cheaply as possible.<\/p><p>Parts of the internal structure were plywood. Instrumentation was pulled off a J 29 Tunnan. The landing gear came from a J 21R. The engine was a single Armstrong Siddeley Adder of roughly 1,050 pounds of thrust, which is a modest figure for a jet aircraft carrying a person.<\/p><p>One Swedish account describes it as the smallest aircraft ever fitted with an ejection seat, which is a single-source claim but a plausible one given the dimensions.<\/p><p>The nose was painted black, and for a practical reason: Saab&rsquo;s theodolites had to track the aircraft along the flight-test corridors at Kolm\u00e5rden, and a black nose against the sky was easier to follow.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">21 January 1952<\/h2><p>Bengt Olow, who had run Saab&rsquo;s flight test department since 1950, took the 210 off from the company field at Link&ouml;ping on 21 January 1952 and flew it for about half an hour. Every source agrees on the date, which in a story with this many contested numbers is worth noting.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/saab-210-lilldraken-in-flight-1952.jpg\" alt=\"Saab 210 Lilldraken in flight in March 1952\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The 210 in flight, photographed by Saab on 2 March 1952, in its original 210A configuration with nose intakes. Photo: Saab AB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>The wing worked. In the words of the Swedish technical press, the 210 essentially verified the wind-tunnel results and the calculations that had been made for the design. Two months after that first flight, the Air Force placed its first order for what would become the Saab 35.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Vnnkz42BUzY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>The Swedish Air Force Museum, which owns the aircraft, tells its story above.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The two things it actually fixed<\/h2><p>A testbed that only confirms what you already believed is a waste of money. The 210 earned its cost by finding problems.<\/p><p>The first was visibility. In its original 210A form the intakes sat at the nose and wing roots, and in the landing attitude they blocked the pilot&rsquo;s forward view, which for an aircraft intended to operate from stretches of public road was unacceptable. Saab rebuilt it as the 210B with the intakes moved aft alongside the cockpit. Look at any Draken and you will see intakes beside the cockpit; that is the 210 talking.<\/p><p>The second was stopping. A drag chute was added in spring 1952 and subsequently adopted on every full-scale Draken variant.<\/p><p>Both fixes are small. Both would have been considerably more expensive to discover on a full-size supersonic prototype, and one of them would have been discovered by a pilot who could not see the runway.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KknKKrxrLWc\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What it became<\/h2><p>The Draken first flew on 25 October 1955, again with Olow at the controls. It went on to Mach 2 in January 1960 and remained in service for decades, with production totalling somewhere around 612 to 615 aircraft depending on whose count you accept.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;There were no real supersonic aircraft at that time, and it was an extraordinarily difficult task that Saab was given. The result exceeded expectations, but of course I could never have dreamed that the Draken would still be in active service today.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Erik Bratt<\/strong> &mdash; The engineer who led the Draken design at Saab, quoted in a Saab press release marking the aircraft&rsquo;s 50th anniversary, 25 October 2005<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>Bratt was almost ninety when he said that, and the aircraft he had designed was still flying.<\/p><p>The double delta never became entirely docile, mind. A former Draken pilot describes the handling in terms that explain why the 210 was built in the first place.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The Draken was speed-unstable below 550 km\/h, meaning the slower you flew, the more you had to hold the nose up. Then the drag increased, and the more you had to add power. The landings were sweaty, until in time you got to know the aeroplane.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Bj&ouml;rn Svedfelt<\/strong> &mdash; Former Draken pilot, in Teknikhistoria, December 2023<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The aircraft that is still there<\/h2><p>The 210 flew somewhere around 900 sorties over four years. The exact figure is disputed, with counts ranging from 887 to about a thousand, and the retirement date is given variously as 1955 or 1956. The commonly cited last flight of 25 October 1955 is worth treating with caution, since that is also the date of the Draken&rsquo;s own maiden flight and a conflation is easy to imagine.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/saab-210-lilldraken-flygvapenmuseum-display.jpg\" alt=\"Saab 210 Lilldraken preserved at the Swedish Air Force Museum\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The sole Saab 210 at Flygvapenmuseum. The red scheme is not original; the museum has stated an intention to restore the black test-corridor nose. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qOnsll_Wb3g\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>It sits today at Flygvapenmuseum near Link&ouml;ping, in its 210B form. The red paint it currently wears is wrong, applied by a local workshop after a loading accident at a ground exhibition, without reference to the original colours. The museum has said it intends to restore the black scheme.<\/p><p>There is something fitting about the survivor of this particular story being the small one. Saab needed to know whether a wing shape could be landed by a human being, and rather than model it, argue about it, or risk a full-size prototype, they built a cheap little aeroplane with plywood inside it and borrowed landing gear, and went and found out.<\/p><p>The answer was yes, with two corrections. Both corrections went into every Draken ever built.<\/p><p><em>Sources: Flygvapenmuseum; Saab AB press releases, 1955 and 2005; Lennart Berns, Teknikhistoria (Ny Teknik), December 2023; Arboga Elektronikhistoriska F&ouml;rening; Svensk Flyghistorisk F&ouml;rening; Popul&auml;r Historia; avionslegendaires.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/saab-37-viggen-highway-fighter-road-base\/\">The Saab Viggen: The Fighter Built to Fly From the Roads<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/lockheed-xf-90-penetration-fighter-nuclear-tests\/\">Lockheed XF-90: The Fighter Too Tough to Kill<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n\n\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\n\n\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was the Saab 210 Lilldraken?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Saab 210, formally Flygplan 210 and nicknamed Lilldraken or Little Dragon, was a manned sub-scale aerodynamic testbed built to prove the double-delta wing intended for the Saab 35 Draken. It was roughly 70 per cent of the full-size aircraft.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did Sweden need a new interceptor in 1949?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Swedish Air Force asked for an interceptor capable of Mach 1.4 to 1.5 that could also operate from dispersed road bases, in order to meet the Soviet bomber threat crossing the Baltic. Nothing meeting that specification existed anywhere in the world at the time.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What is a double-delta wing?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Erik Bratt\u2019s double delta used an inner wing section swept at 80 degrees and an outer panel swept at 57 degrees. For comparison, Saab\u2019s own J 29 Tunnan had a wing swept at just 25 degrees, which shows how radical the new planform was.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did Saab build a piloted scale model instead of using a wind tunnel?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Because the wind tunnel could not settle whether the double-delta wing would actually work, particularly at low speed. Saab therefore built a small piloted aircraft and flew it, treating a man in a cockpit as the only reliable way to get the answer.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Who designed the double-delta wing?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The double-delta configuration was the work of Saab designer Erik Bratt. His layout gave good supersonic performance and internal volume without a conventional tail, and it defined the shape of the Saab 35 Draken that followed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What did the Saab 210 lead to?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">It led directly to the Saab 35 Draken, the Mach 2 interceptor that entered Swedish service in the late 1950s. The Draken\u2019s distinctive silhouette came from the same double-delta wing the little Saab 210 had been built to validate.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the Saab 210 Lilldraken?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Saab 210, formally Flygplan 210 and nicknamed Lilldraken or Little Dragon, was a manned sub-scale aerodynamic testbed built to prove the double-delta wing intended for the Saab 35 Draken. 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Rather than risk a full-size prototype, Saab built a 70 per cent aeroplane with plywood inside and borrowed landing gear, and went and found out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":18858364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18858922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Saab 210 Lilldraken: The Half-Size Draken | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Saab built a 70 per cent aeroplane with plywood inside to prove the double-delta wing. 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