Your article on the Gripen (June issue) mentions that the aircraft an be “turned around” between missions by just one technician and five conscripts within 10 minutes for air defence missions and 20 minutes for strike missions, depending on the weapons load.

In War in Peace, An Analysis of Warefare Since 1945, edited by Sir Robert Thompson and published by Orbis Publishing (1983), it states that Israeli aircraft had a “turnaround time of 7 minutes per aircraft” (during the 1967 Six-Day War.) This seems to me to be significantly faster, even though it happened more than 37 years ago.

Furthermore, in the October 2003 edition of Noseweek, Helmoed-Romer Heitman is quoted as saying he would have liked to see the SAAF keep its Cheetahs. The same article mentions that the Cheetahs are in fact Israeli Kfirs. The Kfirs replaced the Mirages (7 minute turnaround time) that Israel used in 1967. Now the Kfirs/Cheetahs are being replaced with Gripens of at least 10 minutes turnaround time. This is not about extolling the Israelis, but is something amiss?

David P Kramer

Killarney

With acknowledgements to David P Kramer and the Popular Mechanics.