An embargo and an empty sky

In October 1940 the United States placed an embargo on the American fighters Sweden had ordered, and the Swedish Air Force found itself facing a war on its doorstep with a shortage of modern fighters. The answer was a new organisation: the Royal Air Administration’s own aircraft workshop in Stockholm, Kungliga Flygförvaltningens Flygverkstad i Stockholm, FFVS. It had one job, to design and build a fighter quickly, with Bo Lundberg leading the design team.

Steel tube and plywood

The result was the J 22, a compact mid-wing monoplane designed around what Sweden could actually get. To save strategic materials it used a plywood-covered molybdenum steel tube fuselage and wings with welded steel spars under plywood skin, and its engine was a Swedish copy of the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp. Prototypes were built at the national aeronautical research institute, production aircraft were assembled in a hangar at Bromma leased from the airline ABA, and sub-assemblies came from firms outside aviation such as AGA and Hägglund & Söner.

198 fighters, then nothing

The J 22 first flew on 20 September 1942 and reached the F 9 wing at Gothenburg in October 1943. Strikes slowed production, and the last 18 were assembled by the air force workshops at Arboga; the final aircraft was delivered on 6 April 1946, completing 198 in all. Pilots rated it highly at low and medium altitude. With the war over and jets coming, FFVS had no further purpose, and the J 22 left service in 1952.

Fábricas

• Bromma assembly hangar · Stockholm Bromma Airport — Built by and leased from AB Aerotransport

Pessoas

• Bo Lundberg · chief designer — Led the J 22 design team