page_title: Swedish Air Force
section_title: Expansion during the Cold War
hierarchical_section_title: Swedish Air Force / History / Expansion during the Cold War
caption_attribution_description: English: A North American P-51D-20-NA Mustang (c/n 26020, s/n 44-63992, Swedish Fv26020, Israeli 58) at the Flygvapenmuseum. More than 160 Mustangs were operated by the Swedish Air Force. As no planes were kept in Sweden, this Mustang was brought back from Israel in 1979 and is now on display at the Flygvapenmuseum at Linkping, Sweden.
context_page_description: The Swedish Royal Air Force is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces.
context_section_description: The Swedish Royal Air Force underwent a rapid modernization from 1945. It was no longer politically acceptable to equip it with second-rate models. Instead, the Air Staff purchased the best it could find from abroad, e.g. P-51D Mustangs, De Havilland Mosquito NF.19 night fighters and de Havilland Vampires, and supported the development of top performance domestic models. When the Saab 29 Tunnan fighter was introduced around 1950, Sweden suddenly had planes that were equal to the best of the Royal Air Force, the Soviet Union's VVS, and the U.S. Air Force.
  In the late 1950s the Swedish Royal Air Force introduced the Bas 60 air base system, which revolved around force dispersal of air squadrons across many wartime air bases in case of war in order to make it complicated for an opponent to destroy the air force on the ground. Road runways were also introduced as backup runways. Bas 60 was developed further into Bas 90 during the 1970s and 1980s.
  During the Cold War large amounts of money (including funds intended for the Swedish nuclear weapons programme) were spent on the Swedish Air Force and domestic airplane production. In 1957 Sweden had the world's fourth most powerful air force, with about 1000 modern planes in front-line service. During the 1950s, it introduced fighters such as the Saab J 29 Tunnan, Saab A 32 Lansen and Saab J 35 Draken.
  In June 1952 the Swedish Royal Air Force lost two aircraft on Cold War operations, in what became known as the Catalina affair. A signals intelligence Douglas DC-3 was intercepted by Soviet MiG-15s over the Baltic, and shot down with the loss of three aircrew and five civilian technicians. A PBY Catalina rescue seaplane was then also downed, the five-man crew being rescued from the sea by a freighter.
  In the airdefence role the Swedish air force also operated Surface to Air Missiles. 
  F8 Barkaby Svea Air Corps http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/HMS_Stockholm_vapen_bra.svg operated de Havilland J-28B Vampire jet aircraft in 1949 being replaced in 1953 by Saab J-29 Tunnan and in 1957 by J-34 Hunter fighters. As of 1961 F8 reroled into missile defence role becoming the air force technical training centre for using the new RB-68 Bloodhound systems in 2 squadrons until 1974.
  These Swedish units also operated the RB-68 missile system (1 squadron each):
  F 10 Ängelholm Scania Airwing http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Sk%C3%A5nska_flygflottiljen_vapen.svg
  F 12 Kalmar Airwing http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/HMS_Kalmar_vapen.svg
  F 13 Norrköping Bråvalla Airwing http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/HMS_Norrk%C3%B6ping_vapen.svg
  F 17 Kallinge Blekinge Airwing http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Blekinge_flygflottilj_vapen.svg
caption: Swedish Royal Air Force P-51D on display at the Swedish Air Force Museum
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