For my first entry, I decided to expand on the FFVS J 36 Näcken, which I first draw earlier this year for nestor_d's unofficial
air superiority jet fighter challenge. I corrected some errors in my work and came up with a couple more versions for it. So here it goes:
FFVS J 36 Näcken
Naval fighter - Sweden - 1957
In 1954, just as Saab’s new Draken fighter was taking off, the Royal Swedish Navy was starting to look for a modern interceptor to eventually replace the navalized Lansens they were in the process of acquiring and to protect the two new carriers they were planning to build. Early on in the process, Saab proposed the navy a heavily modified version of the J 35, but because of all the extra equipment required by a carrier-borne fighter, the adapted design was, already on paper, overweight and it lacked the Draken’s most attractive feature, namely its manoeuvrability. Unsatisfied, the Swedish navy started looking for a foreign design. But before a choice could be made, FFVS approached the navy with an idea of its own, based around an abandoned design they had previously drafted for a fast light bomber. The Swedish government had kept FFVS in business since the end of the war with maintenance contracts and the production of licensed aircrafts like the J 28 (de Havilland Vampire and Sea Vampire) and the T 20 (English Electric Canberra). FFVS proposition's raised some concerns over the company's capacity to deliver but their design was deemed interesting enough for a prototype to be ordered.
J 36A
The J 36 Näcken flew for the first time on 2 May 1957 and after a series a successful trials, was ordered into production. Because the new 33,000 tons carriers of the
Riksnyckeln-class were yet to be completed, the first deck landing trials took place aboard the 20,000 tons
Dristigheten and
Norrköping until October 1958 when an aircraft was destroyed after a failed landing on
Norrköping. The crew escaped unscathed, but the trials were suspended until March 1960 when HSwMS
Riksnyckeln was ready to receive the aircrafts. At this point, a full squadron of J 36 A was operational.
The armament usually consisted of two IR-guided Rb 24 mounted on pylons under the wings and up to four SARH Rb 28 (AIM-4F Falcon) in the missiles bay under the fuselage. When this bay was loaded with four missiles, each falcon was mounted on top of each other, separated by the rotary door with two missiles inside and two out. In 1966, the more performant Rb 27 (AIM-26B) was introduced and was adapted to the Näcken. The missile bay could also accommodate extra fuel inside of it and on later variants of the J 36, it was more common to use it in this way, with the Falcon missiles instead replaced by wing-mounted Rb 72.
J 36B
In 1961 the new B model was introduced, it featured new avionics and radar it was the first variant of the J 36 to accommodate the AIM-9 Sidewinder, known in Swedish service as the Rb 24. An infrared search and track sensor was added under the nose starting at the 101st airframe. With 228 units built, plus 22 conversions from the A model, the J 36-B would be the most-produced version of the Näcken. The J 36 first operational carrier deployement with the Swedish navy took place in the winter of 1960-1961 when the new Carrier
Riksnyckeln was sent on a cruise into the Barents Sea. The ship made port calls in Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and North Germany before returning to Göteborg in late February. During these four months at sea, the new fighter proved to be an excellent asset to the Royal Swedish Navy and compared favourably with most of the British and American fighter designs that it encountered during the different excercises.
The FFVS J 36 was designed around a pair of Roll Royce Avon turbojets and featured a characteristic high swept-wing. The sheer power of the pair of Avons gave the Näcken a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.9 when armed and fueled-up, better than most contemporary western fighter of the time. It allowed the Näcken to perform zoom climb and gave it excellent acceleration, even if its aerodynamics somewhat limited its top speed. It was manned by a crew of two: the pilot and the radar operator. The latter was in charge of the radar and the weapon system designed in order to require minimal ground instruction when in flight.
In the summer of 1961, it was the turn of HSwMS
Gotland to enter service and Näckens first landed on July 23. A year later, between April and September 1962, HSwMS
Riksnyckeln was sent alongside the battleship HSwMS
Gustav V to Swedish Gold Coast in Africa to help support the ongoing transition to independence of the colonial administration. Two years later, in June 1964, HSwMS
Gotland was sent in emergency to the Swedish Gold Coast, now the Republic of Volta, to help the newly independent country after a failed communist coup had turned into a rebellion against the government. The J 36 carried bombing sorties against the communist rebels in Volta until December when
Gotland and her complement of Näckens went back to Sweden. The rebellion would be quelled in early 1965 and civil war was averted.
The height of the career of the J 36 in Swedish service came during the Benin-Voltese War. In 1972, when socialist Benin invaded Volta, Näckens were once again called to Africa. As Volta was overrun and the Swedish military lost its bases of operation on the continent, HSwMS
Riksnyckeln and HSwMS
Gotland deployed in alternance in the Gulf of Guinea to provide close air support and air cover to the Voltese army. Facing against the Swedish Navy's J 36s were the Soviet-supplied MiG-21s and Su-7s of the People's Army air Force of Benin. Over the course of the 20 months of the war, Näckens shot down nine Beninese aircrafts (4 Su-7, 3 MiG-21, 1 C-47 and 1 An-2) and lost only one of their numbers in air-to-air combat.
J 36C
Starting in 1966, the Swedish Air Force also operated the Näcken. The specially-build version J 36C had received strengthened non-folding wings allowing for more and heavier ordnance to be carried. Three squadrons were equipped with the type and served until 1981. As they spent all of their carreers deployed in Finland and Northern Sweden in the quick response force, the land version of the Näcken never saw action with the Swedish Air Force. But after their retirement, the Netherlands bought two dozens airframes with reasonable flight hours and deployed them with their air force in the war in the Congo.
J 36N1 - J 36N2
In early 1958, the Dutch Navy issued specifications for a new jet fighter to replace the Hawker Harpoon currently flying with their naval aviation. The Dutch carrier HNLMS
Conrad Helfrich had just entered drydock in Rotterdam for a massive rebuilding program that would last two and a half years and would allow her to operate modern jet aircrafts. Despite this rebuild, the
Centaur-class carrier bought from the United Kingdom at the end of the Second World War was still considered somewhat cramped and the Netherlands were looking for a small aircraft that would allow more of them to be carried. FFVS officially proposed the J 36 to the Dutch government in June 1958 and in February 1959 two Näckens flew to the Netherlands to demonstrate their capabilities. The Dutch Navy liked the aircraft and two Dutch pilots were allowed to fly the J 36. Other designs were considered, most notably the Vought F-8 Crusader II and the Fairey Stingray, but the two-seats design of the J 36 was preferred to the singe-seater F-8 and its developement was more advanced than the Stingray. The J 36 Näcken was thus selected by the Dutch government in August 1959.
Dutch J 36s were famously involded in the Indonesian attempt to sink HNLMS Conrad Helfrich in May 1968 during the Papua War. On 21 May, Näckens and Harpoons from HNLMS
Conrad Helfrich carried out a morning airstrike on the Indonesian landing operations near Manokwari, after which an Indonesian reconnaissance plane was able to find the carrier group. In the early afternoon, the Indonesian carried out a major air attack with Il-28 and Tu-16 bombers. During the battle, Dutch Näckens shot down eleven Indonesian aircrafts (6 Tu-16, 3 Il-28 and a single MiG-19) and damaged several others. No J 36 were lost to enemy action on that day, but their efforts did not prevented the
Conrad Helfrich to be hit by an AS-5 Kelt supersonic anti-ship missile, severely damaging her and forcing the task force to retreat. The Papua War would last for another two years but Näckens only returned to the conflict in 1970 -on board the repaired HNLMS
Conrad Helfrich- to protect the evacuation of Hollandia.
Like their Swedish counterparts, Dutch J 36s also saw a lot of action in Africa. In 1973 the intensification of guerilla warfare in New Holland and the open support granted by Angola to the rebels had led to an abrupt escalation of the conflict when the New Holland Air Force launched an all-out attack on Angola. In response, the Soviet Union enrolled the support of the South American Triad States to provide more direct support to Angola. Between 1974 and 1975, the New Hollander military began suffering significant setbacks, to the point they officially requested the help of the Netherlands. During the war in the Congo, the J 36 Näcken shot down 14 confirmed enemy aircrafts for a total loss of 37 aircrafts, 11 to enemy air-to-air actions, 20 from ground fire and 6 accidents. J 36s were flown by the Dutch Navy from carriers and airbases and starting in 1976 were also operated by the Dutch Air Force and later on the New Holland Air Force. While dominant in the opening stages of the conflict, the Näcken suffered from the introduction of modern Soviet fighters such as the MiG-23 and the MiG-27. The proliferation of SAM also contributed to increasing losses.
When New Holland collapsed in 1985, about 30 Näckens in various conditions were captured by the Congolese forces. These aircrafts came mostly from the New Holland Air Force base of Wilhelmstad but some, belonging to the Dutch Air Force, were captured on Makal airfield and it is known that two Dutch Navy J 36 were left on the ground at Muanda Air Station when the evacuation ended on August 28th. During the war in the Congo, the Dutch J 36s had accumulated flying hours to the breaking point and when the war ended, most of the surviving airframes were severely worm out. As such, most of Navy and all of Army flown J 36 were retired from service during 1985-1986. Sixteen were refurbished and kept in operation to provide air cover for the sole Dutch aircraft carrier. But with the disparition of most Dutch overseas possesions, the decision was taken to retire the old
Conrad Helfrich in 1987, without a replacement. Now without a role, the last Dutch Navy Näckens were also retired the same year.
With the help of Angolan and Soviet technicians, the Congolese People's Air Force repaired a number of the captured airframes, with an estimated peak of twenty J 36 in service at the same time in the late 1980s. A single airframe was also sent to the Soviet Union for evaluation. The Congolese seems to have used the J 36 more in a ground attack role, presumably due to the incompatibility of their Western electronics with the Soviet-issued hardware Congo was using. There are at least two recorded crashes of a J 36 in Congolese service, in 1987 and in 1993, and the last operational aircrafts were reported as officially out-of-service in 1996.
J 36H
After the establishment of a new right-wing military dictatorship in 1953, the Spanish government had in the late 1950s initiated a transition away from the obsolecent Soviet military adware their military was operating with. In 1956 they had purchased F-86 Sabres from the United States and the next year, were among the first customers of the new Sud Aviation Vautour built France. Thus, in 1961 the Spanish Air Force announced it was now on the market for a new all-weather interceptor. Designs from Convair, Lockheed, FFVS and Hawker were considered and Spain would eventually settle on the FFVS J 36 in 1963. First deliveries began in 1965 and by the end of the year the Näcken was accepted into service.
Spanish J 36s were similar to the land-based version designed for the Swedish Air Force but dispensed entirely of the landing hook and had a different radar. The last aicraft arrived in Spain in 1968, at which point the fleet reached 57. Spanish Näckens suffered from a single accident and were well-liked by their crews. Two facts that reasured the Spanish Junta in their decision to choose the J 36 when neighbouring Portugal started operating the Lockheed F-104 in 1966 and suffered a number of fatal crashes. Although J 36s in Spanish service never saw combat, they represented the backbone of the air force and Spain's first line of defense for almost two decades. In the early 1980s, Spain selected the F-18 Hornet as its new multirole fighter. Näckens served for a time alongside the Hornet but, as greater numbers of the new fighter came into service, the last J 36s were finally retired in 1983.
J 36E
The final version of the FFVS J 36 came in 1969 when the Swedish Navy started a modernization program of their B models. This new version included the improvements introduced in previous versions like the refueling probe and the improved avionics, and added some more to it. A new, more recent, radar suite was installed and the Näcken could now be armed with the Swedish-developed Rb 72 IR and SARH missiles. Although the capacity to carry Falcons was retained, they were rarely carried in the 1970s and the bay was usually filled with fuel. The infrared scanner was modernized and a radar warning receiver was installed, the latter being long demanded by the pilots and considered a vital improvement in light of the Dutch reports coming from the Congo.
The modernized Näckens continued to serve the Swedish Navy for the entire 1970s, even as their replacement, the Saab Viggen, was entering service. In 1982, the three squadrons still flying the Näcken (MF 100, MF 160 and MF 190) were merged into MF 190, which flew the J 36 until its final retirement from active service in September 1984.
Specifications for J 36E Näcken
General characteristics
Crew: 2
Lenght: 49 ft 6 in (15.07 m)
Wingspan: 27 ft 5 in (8.37 m)
Height: 13 ft 8 in (4.13 m)
Empty weight: 22,930 lb (10,401 kg)
Gross weight: 37,580 lb (17,046 kg)
Max Takeoff weight: 42,820 lb (19,423 kg)
Powerplant: Two Svenska Flygmotor RM6C afterburning turbojet engines, 12,700 lbf (56 kN) thrust each dry, 17,600 lbf (78 kN) with afterburner
Performance
Max speed: 1,500 mph (2,414 km/h, 1,303 kn) at 35,000 ft (10,668 m)
Combat range: 684 mi (1,100 km, 594 nmi)
Ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,288 m)
Rate of climb: 31,500 ft/min (160 m/s)
Thrust-to-weight ratio: 0.9 at gross weight
Armament
Missiles: Up to four Rb 72 IR and SARH air-to-air missiles on wing-mounted hardpoints
Bombs: Up to 12,000 lb of ordnance
