The J 35 Draken was an amazing aircraft for its time! It first flew in 1955, around the time the first truly supersonic U.S. fighter appeared - the F-100 Super Saber.
The original J 35 was 300 mph faster than the F-100, and with later engines, the Draken could reach Mach 2 (!!) It's a testament to the design that the J 35 stayed in service for so long. It served well as an interceptor, fighter, and even attack platform. It had none of the evil handling characteristics of the F-100, of which nearly 40% (!!) were lost to accidents.
You've all probably seen the famous "Saber Dance" video. At the time, sketchy low-speed handling was thought to go hand in hand with supersonic top speed. Google "Adverse Yaw" if you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPkqTsZmBRc
And they were built like a truck. You could walk all over them working on them. Total absence of NO STEP signs
I changed wing on one that had been in a full speed head on crash with another J35 both landed, but the other one was scraped
due to the damage. It was ripped open from just behind the air intake most of the wing gone and the fin damaged
from hitting the droptank on the one i repaired. They where very easy to work on i started on it after the 9 coffee brake
and it was ready to fly before i finished the day at 4. It was during a big military maneuver so they needed all planes they
could get airborne. So they stood ready to x-ray the.... whatever you call the beam you bolted the wing to no cracks so i
bolted on a used wing we had leaning against a wall. And this was on a plane that had flown 3X the constructed flight time
Was in service for almost 50 years i believe....Its like a Fokker triplane had been in service in the 60s
Sweden had that problem with the swept wing SAAB 29 Flying barrel as it was called. A lot of crashes in the beginning that's
why the deltawing on the 35. I was about 3 years old but its etched in my mind i was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for
breakfast when hear a wistling outside, turn my head and a 29 passing outside the window wingtip almost touching the ground
I look right down in the cookpit it is like a photo in my brain,pilot in white helmet with a red stripe, green flight suit, yellow gloves,
black visor on the helmet. Then the full sound, my mother screamed dropped my breakfast i jumped up looked out the window
saw him just clearing the barnroof the telephone wire to my grandparents six meters of the ground was cut. That was a close one
he could as well crashed in to our house and killed us. There was a lot of crashes in the 50-70s a hundreds of pilots died but they exercised hard under realistic combat conditions. As kids we often heard the "thunder of freedom" and saw the fighters in the sky
