The Swedish Air Force Museum

The Swedish Air Force goes back right to the Wright Flyer period but, like most countries, was really an afterthought and a not very important or well funded part of the Army for the early decades … and she really only became technologically advanced with home built *advanced* aircraft after WW2.

She did build a number of foreign designs in country before and during WW2 but, as with many smaller countries, found the designs she had settled on were soon obsolete or obsolescent due to the rapid pace of technological change in the 1930s.

Gloster Gladiator of the Swedish Volunteer Squadron which served during the Russo-Finnish Winter War – in Finnish colours and with Finnish national markings.
Another view of the same Gladiator
The only surviving Ju-86 Bomber in the entire world – or, at least, the bit I could fit in frame. In the rear is an Italian CR42 in Swedish colours.
After WW2 they bought a lot of P-51 Mustangs – but sold them all off. This one was gifted to the Museum but is painted in typical Swedish markings for the Squadron(s) which used them.
Yes, the Swedes also purchased late model Spitfires after the war!
The latest Swedish combat aircraft, the JAS-39 Gripen – all digital MultiRole aircraft, state of the art!

There were a lot more aircraft than these, but the poor lighting, cramped layout and other factors meant that many of the shots I took didn’t come out well or, indeed, that I simply couldn’t get any shots in the first place.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s