The barrel that made Sweden a jet power

What makes the Saab 29 Tunnan special

Full specifications

Baseline note: the figures below describe the J 29F, the definitive Tunnan — a J 29B or J 29E airframe rebuilt with the reheated RM2B engine and the dogtooth outer wing, and the only mark cleared for the Rb 24 Sidewinder. Deltas for the early J 29A, the unarmed S 29C reconnaissance aircraft and the earlier J 29B and J 29E are in grey. One correction worth making at the outset, because it is widely repeated: neither the J 29B nor the J 29E had an afterburner. Reheat was developed on a single converted aircraft designated J 29D in 1954–55 and then fitted, together with the E’s new outer wing, to 308 rebuilt B and E airframes as the J 29F. Swedish designation letters denote the role a unit flies rather than the airframe standard, so the same aeroplane is a J 29F with a fighter wing and an A 29F with an attack wing.

Armament & payload

Four cannon, a rack of rockets and, on the F, Sweden’s first air-to-air missile

The Tunnan’s armament is conventional for its generation and unusually well thought out for a small air force. Four 20 mm Hispano cannon sit in the lower nose under the intake, with 180 rounds each — heavy enough to matter, light enough to fit. Eight inner hardpoints carry rockets, and two outer ones carry drop tanks that double as incendiary bombs. There is no attack radar, no guided air-to-surface weapon, and no bombsight worth the name. It is a gun-and-rocket aeroplane.

The J 29F added the Rb 24 — the AIM-9B Sidewinder built under licence — and with it Sweden entered the missile age. Only the F was cleared for it, and the thirty aircraft sold to Austria were never armed with missiles at all, because the 1955 Austrian State Treaty forbade it. Sweden’s own rocket inventory was extensive and locally made: an 8 cm rocket derived from the British RP-3, a 14.5 cm shaped-charge anti-armour rocket, a 15 cm high-explosive rocket and an 18 cm anti-shipping weapon, plus the Bofors 75 mm "Frida" introduced in 1955.

In the Congo the guns and the rockets were what the aircraft actually used, against Katangese airfields, vehicles and positions. Fits varied by mark and operator: the S 29C carried cameras and no weapons at all, the Rb 24 was a J 29F fitting only, the Austrian aircraft flew without missiles by treaty, and Swedish sources differ on precisely which of the heavy rockets went to Africa.

Sourcing caveat: Swedish weapon designations are role-based and change with the unit, which makes cross-referencing English sources treacherous — akan is a cannon, rak a rocket, prak and psrak anti-armour rockets, srak a high-explosive rocket, jrak an air-to-air rocket and örak a practice round. Figures above follow Swedish air force sources and the J 29F pilot’s manual. English accounts of the Congo deployment routinely describe a "150 mm anti-armour rocket": the 15 cm srak m/51 is a high-explosive weapon and the anti-armour rocket of the period is the 14.5 cm psrak m/49. Both were in the Swedish inventory and both are credibly reported in Africa; a single label combining them is not correct.

Variants

One airframe, five service marks, and a rebuild programme that made most of them the same aeroplane

The Tunnan family is simpler than its designation list suggests. There is one airframe, produced in four service standards — A, B, C and E — and then a fleet-wide rebuild that turned most of the B and E aircraft into the J 29F. Swedish prefixes describe the job, not the machine: J for jakt, pursuit; A for attack; S for spaning, reconnaissance; SK for skol, school. The same J 29B flying with an attack wing is an A 29B, painted with olive-green wingtips and fin from 1954 to say so.

What is striking about the programme is how competitive it was. Sweden, neutral, with a population under seven million and no wartime aircraft industry to speak of, produced a swept-wing jet fighter that reached squadrons before the Hunter or the Mystère and that Swedish assessments rated the equal of the F-86 and the MiG-15. It went into service in 1951 and it was still setting closed-circuit world speed records in 1955.

J 29 prototypes (1948–50, 4 built)

The first two carried test instrumentation instead of armament; the third was the first to fly with the four 20 mm cannon. First flight 1 September 1948 by Robert A. Moore. Preceded by the R 101 cigarren, a straight-winged design resembling the P-80 that was rejected, and the R 1001, which was chosen and then swept.

J 29A1 and A2 (1951–54, 224 built)

The first production fighter, RM2 engine, 1,430 litres of internal fuel. The first 32 A1s had wing-mounted air brakes; the 192 A2s moved them to the fuselage ahead of the main undercarriage doors, where they stayed. Delivered to F 13 Bråvalla from May 1951 and served with F 3, F 9, F 12, F 15 and F 16.

J 29B and A 29B (1953–55, 332 built)

The most numerous mark and the first genuinely useful one: internal fuel raised from 1,430 to 2,150 litres and full provision for external stores. Flown as the J 29B by fighter wings and the A 29B by attack wings. This is the aircraft that went to the Congo and the aircraft that set the 500 km world speed record in 1954.

S 29C (1954–70, 76 built)

Photographic reconnaissance, with a rebuilt camera nose and no armament at all. Fitted with the PQ17 radar warning receiver, the first in Swedish service. Never received the afterburner. Served with F 11, F 21 and finally the target-towing squadron; two S 29Cs set the 1,000 km closed-circuit world record on 23 March 1955 and two more served in the Congo.

J 29D (1954–55, 1 converted)

The afterburner testbed — a single aircraft with Östen Svantesson’s reheat unit on the RM2, raising the top speed to 1,075 km/h and transforming the climb. Everything the J 29F is, it is because of this aeroplane. A separate J 29D proposal to fit four 30 mm HSS 825 cannon was tested with mock-ups and abandoned when the gun proved unsafe.

J 29E (1955, 29 built)

A J 29B with a new outer wing carrying a dogtooth leading-edge extension to raise the critical Mach number. No afterburner. Only 29 were built as such, because the far better idea was to combine this wing with the J 29D’s engine. Served with F 4 and F 9.

J 29F and A 29F (1955–76, 308 rebuilt)

The definitive Tunnan and the baseline described above: J 29B and J 29E airframes rebuilt with the reheated RM2B and the E’s dogtooth wing, and the only mark cleared for the Rb 24 Sidewinder. Some were converted at Saab and some at their own wings. Modified from 1967 for target towing, and the last in Swedish service.

SK 29B (offered 1950, none built)

The trainer that should have existed. A two-seat conversion with duplicate ejection seats, sights and controls, no armament, no armour and less fuel in the upper fuselage tank; a side-by-side layout was also studied. The air force chose to build fighters instead. Given that 242 Tunnans were written off and 99 pilots died, this is the most consequential decision in the programme’s history.

Austrian J 29F (1961–72, 30 second-hand)

The only export sale Saab ever made of the type, despite extensive marketing. Thirty used J 29Fs to the Austrian Air Force, flown by 1. Staffel of the Jagdbombergeschwader with yellow A-to-O tail codes and never armed with air-to-air missiles because the 1955 State Treaty forbade guided weapons. Ten were written off and six pilots killed. Retired in 1972.

Retirement chronology and the single flying aircraft. Front-line Swedish fighter service ended through the 1960s as the J 32B Lansen and J 35 Draken arrived; the S 29C left reconnaissance work in 1970; the last J 29Fs, converted for target towing from 1967, served with the target-towing squadron until 1976, twenty-five years after the first delivery. Austria retired its thirty aircraft in 1972. The Congo deployment of 1961–63 was the second occasion on which Swedish combat aircraft were used operationally — the first was the volunteer wing F 19 in the Finnish Winter War of 1939–40 — and it remains the only time Swedish jets have fired in anger. Sweden itself has not been at war since 1814. When the detachment wound up, two J 29Bs and both S 29Cs were flown home and the rest were blown up at Kamina rather than shipped back; J 29B 29398 Vit Filip survives in storage at the Flygvapenmuseum. Roughly thirty airframes are preserved across Sweden, Austria, Britain, France, Italy, Denmark and the United States, and exactly one still flies: J 29F 29670, civil registration SE-DXB. It first flew on 4 March 1955, made its last air force flight on 30 June 1968 with 1,195 hours on the airframe, sat at the Flygvapenmuseum at Malmslätt for twenty-three years, was restored from 1991 by a team at F 10 Ängelholm and returned to the air on 11 July 1995. It is owned by the Flygvapenmuseum, maintained and flown by the Swedish Air Force Historic Flight at F 7 Såtenäs, and as of the 2026 display season it is still flying — the only airworthy Saab 29 in the world.

From barrel to Congo and back

Twelve stories of the Flying Barrel

The Flying Barrel in pictures

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The Saab 29 Tunnan in motion

Video coming soon. We are still sourcing the right footage of the Flying Barrel — a rare flying survivor kept airworthy by the Swedish Air Force Historic Flight. Check back for a full video feature on the Tunnan.

The Tunnan in motion

Not A Pound For Air To Ground — one of the most-watched Tunnan films on YouTube.

Where the Tunnan flew

The score that defines it

The Tunnan’s combat record is unique: it is the only jet the Swedish Air Force has ever taken to war. In 1961 Sweden deployed J 29Bs to the United Nations ONUC operation in the Congo as squadron F22. Flying under the UN flag — the aircraft remained Swedish and Swedish-crewed — they carried out ground-attack sorties against the breakaway State of Katanga, striking airfields at Kolwezi and Jadotville and supporting UN troops, alongside Indian Air Force Canberras. There was no air-to-air fighting; the Tunnan’s war was rockets, cannon and bombs against ground targets, and it came through without a combat loss.

Compare the combat record of every military aircraft. Figures as of July 2026.

Everything people ask about the Saab 29 Tunnan

Continue the tour

Every fact, checked

• Aeroseum — Saab Tunnan: The Crisis in the CongoSwedish aviation museum account of the F22 UN deployment, dates and combat operations.
• Plane Encyclopedia — Saab 29 TunnanDevelopment, variants, full specifications and the Congo operation.
• GlobalSecurity.org — Saab J29 TunnanFirst flight and test pilot, the RM2 engine and dog-tooth wing, speed records and Austrian export.
• The National Interest — A Fighter Jet Work of ArtDesign, swept-wing origins and the barrel-shaped fuselage.
• Simple Flying — Saab’s Most Numerous FighterProduction totals, armament, service history and UN operations.
• War Thunder Wiki — Development and VariantsVariant breakdown from J 29A to J 29F and reconnaissance versions.
• Military Factory — Saab J29 TunnanDimensions, weights and performance reference figures.