Swedish Defence, Yesterday, 28th January, an official ceremony took place at the Hungarian Air Force base at Kecskemét, celebrating the successful delivery of all 14 Gripen aircraft to Hungary.
The last 3 aircraft that were delivered last December were handed over by the Swedish Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors to his counterpart Dr. Imre Szekeres. Sweden’s ambassador to Hungary, Cecilia Björner, FMV Director General Gunnar Holmgren and other representatives from the armed forces were also present.
“Our experiences in maintaining and operating the Gripen aircraft are clearly positive so far,” said Colonel Nándor Kilián, deputy commander of the air base. We are pleased with the training progress; we implement our training experiences in our everyday operation.
The Hungarian Gripen pilots have already taken part in an international exercise last year in Sardinia with considerable success. “Of course we will try to take part in more and more exercises and we are fully committed to have the Gripen take over the QRA mission from the MiG-29s by 2009”.
With this ceremony, Sweden and FMV have delivered the latest version of Gripen to Hungary according to the contractual time plan. Also implemented according to the time plan is the training of Hungarian technicians and pilots by the Swedish Air Force. Establishment of Swedish technicians and pilots in Hungary as advisors and a comprehensive logistic operation to establish the Gripen system at the Air Force base in Kecskemét was also implemented.
Mats Hansson, FMVs project leader since the beginning of the Hungarian Gripen project in 2001, is very proud of FMV´s commitment to the contract with Hungary.
“It has been an extremely extensive and demanding period but at the same time a challenge that has been very positive. I would like to say thank you to all the team involved in the contract to Hungary and also to our partners in the armed forces and SAAB who have taken a huge part in delivering Gripen to Hungary”.
The 14 latest version of the Gripen aircraft now in the Hungarian Air Force will be leased until 2016 and then the aircraft will be bought by Hungary on the residual value.
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