🇸🇪 1950s Saab Draken Jet Echoing Strange Sounds at Beachy Head Cliffs, Eastbourne Airshow 2024. 

4:48 check out the vapour around it on that final fast pass

Mad to think this was built just 10 years after Spitfires and the like were commonplace. It still looks futuristic and almost otherworldly even today!

Sweden has consistently designed and built some of the finest jet fighters ever built since their introduction in the ‘50s to today included. Magnificent and beautiful.

As old as the Draken is, it still looks futuristic. Straight out of a sci-fi movie!

Still the most beautiful fighter jet, IMHO :) The markings show this aircraft was stationed at F10, 2nd division Johan Blå. I did my military service at the 3rd division, Johan Gul, taking care of these beautiful birds between their flights.

A common urban legend about the Draken was that its true top speed was unknown, and that it would continue to accelerate until it ran out of fuel. That wasn't true, but one of the prototypes did _accidentally_ broke the soundbarrier while climbing during its first flight in the mid-50s, and the plane turned out to be well capable of Mach 2. It was apparently the fastest airplane in Western Europe at the time of its introduction, and it was in active service for almost 50 years (the last user was Austria, who retired their Drakens in 2005).

One of the best looking fighter jets in history!

Even now that design doesn't look dated. I reckon it was ahead of its time

I grew up with the soundtrack of these fighter planes in the 80s here in Sweden. Still love it❤

Considering jets are only about 80 years old - this one is pretty impressive for being better part of 70.

Reminds me of my childhood. Draken and Viggen were common sights back in the days here in Sweden. Nowadays you barley see or hear any Gripen as the flight hours seems to have been reduced to a minimum. Had the luck of a lowpass flyby a year ago by two Gripens.

Good camera work, good sound, which is NOT easy to accomplish. One of the most beutifull jets ever designed, and one of the better performing and handling ones of that era. Manuverable with a low wind loading.

What a wonderful silhouette!

They flew continuosly over my homtown in the 70’s.

Beautiful aircraft and well captured sir👍

Its a shame they still don't use the Draken & Viggen. Stunning planes for their time.

The last passage is probably the fastest i've seen Lars push this J-35, it's not often you hear turbine song from a Draken.

Pleased I found this, he flew straight over me on the IOW and headed off to Bournmouth. Back in the 90's I saw 2 screeching through the mountains in Austria. A wonderful machine.

I remember that sound from when I was young when swedish air force was training over us with 2 to 4 plane flying by, gives me chills even to day.

I remember seeing Draken at an airshow as a child in the late 70s in Sweden. It had a profund impact on 6 year old me. I had never seen anything that poweful and "nimble" in my life at that point. I have seen many other jets in airshows since then, but Draken will always have a big place in my heart.

From the country that gave us ABBA, Saab, and Volvo, a perfect example of one out of three. Thanks for the vid!

It still looks awesome, like something from a 'thunderbirds' episode. 😀

The Draken will forever look like something from the future.

saab 35 draken and saab 37 viggen is known for their raw power.. its virtually a freaking strong jet engine with canard wings. The sound is fantastic. u feel the power all over..

Looks like something straight out of Thunderbirds, magnificent machine. Warm greetings from the Netherlands🇳🇱.

Wow! Thats the coolest fighter ever made.

A squadron of drakens was detached to RAF Wittering for a few days when I was there in the late ‘60s and the level of noise in relation to their size was astonishing when compared to the Victors based there, and Victors weren’t quiet!

If batman needed an airplane then that's it. Awesome sounds.

I grew up in the seventies in Uppsala, Sweden, just one British mile from the F-16 air flotilla that hosted Saab Draken fighter jets during the Cold War, and they made a lot of noise.

Looks like an F-105, F-106, French Mirage, and MiG 21 had a love child. Truly menacing and gorgeous at the same time.

Saab always make superb aircraft, what a beautiful sight 😍

Thank you for all the hard work in making these excellent videos

Beautiful sights and sounds from my childhood. You couldn’t go one week without seeing them whistle past at treetop height anywhere in the country. Reassuring that we were no target for any of the world powers. Maybe more of a threat, with every able body in arms at that time, with a rifle or sub machine gun under every other bed. We were pretty rich, all of us. Fourth largest airforce in the world. This plane invented the “cobra” manoeuvre.

I was there on Thursday, but the weather was generally pants. It certainly has a "paper aeroplane" look to it. The Swedes certainly build great aircraft.

Made in Sweden.🇸🇪 Those where the dayz my friend. Our liltle nation of worker class proud in their developments. Happy nation.🇸🇪

The sound I grew up with. Greetings from Pori Finland 🎉

Wow, just Wow! Excellent visuals & the sound is the icing on the cake. Stunning capture, thank you so much for sharing this. Compliments the Draken perfectly.

Very cool!..So lucky to get to see a Draken...Last time I was at the Eastbourne show would be 2003 I think..maybe 02...Now living in Scotland where airshows are pretty much exstinct....Especially since the conversion of RAF Leuchars. "Sigh". Eastbourne brings back memories of my late partner...I miss her so very much.

This plane did an air show in my home town a few years back. When the pilot did a low (300 meters) pass, I could feel every bone in my body shaking. The sound was out of this world.

I could watch that thing all day long.

I remember this from when I was a kid during the cold war, and they came flying in pairs each and every day where I lived. They were as exciting as flying saucers back then.

Great vid! We had SWAFHF flying last year from the SAAB field in Linköping with the complete jet series (except for the J21R which there no airworthy left of), 29,32,35,37 and SAAB themselves with the 39. So cool. Mind you that Viggen was flown by Stellan.... 75 years of age!

Gets my vote for coolest jet fighter. The engine sounds great too, saw one of these at an airshow and it had the best roar.

The soundtrack of my childhood building sandcastles on the west coast of sweden.

When I was a child I saw a pilot do the "cobra maneuver" with Draken, they say that Draken was the first fighterjet that made that maneuver. In Sweden we call it "kort parad".

1975 I was 6 years old and heard a sonic boom from a Draken. Clear skies, no wind... just an extremely loud bang from nowhere. I never saw the plane :)

MAGNIFICENT final pass!

I saw this plane in a demo during the international flying cadets exchange in sweden (IACE 1990), in august when Iraq invaded kuwait, and this plane is just absolutely mean looking I love it, including everything else I saw in Sweden then. I absolutely adore Sweden. "Flygvapnet" 🙂

Truly a magnificent aircraft, a handfull to land in the winter on icy runways given its high drag double delta wing.

Lovely to see one of them. Shape still looks relevant now. Such a shame they can't go lower anymore.

I grew up with these magnificent sounds. Our house was located between the F5 and F10 wings of the air force. A lot of the pilots lived in the same area so they'd sometimes come around home for a quick check-up.

Super cool looking jet plane.

Awesome looking aircraft! You done a great job of keeping it in the frame Bob!

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this bird display, but every time I do I think to myself, ‘need one, in Matt black’ 😎

Johan 56, I have done turnarounds on that plane! Aircraft/weapons mechanic, 11 months conscription at F10 Ängelholm, 1994 to 95. J56 belonged to 2nd company, where I was at.

Stunning

I remember this characteristic air-ripping sound from my childhood in 1980s when Drakens were in active service in Finland.

Excellent great sound thank you Bob,Heidi ❤️🤗😁👍

This reminds me of my childhood (I was born in 1952) and our summer house location - on top of a hill like ridge ("Hallandsåsen", NW Skåne) in SW Sweden. Saab 29 Tunnan, Saab 32 Lansen and 35 Draken were flying around into the 70:ies. Tunnan sometimes came in formations of six planes as groups (late 50:ies and perhaps into the 60:ies). When Lansen appeared, they usually came in pairs as I remember it and the same was the case with Draken. It is impossible to say the "exact" years after all this time and I am not an aviation person (I am more into listening to birds, enjoying the nature, silence etc...). Regarding the sound: A few times Draken flew pretty close over our house - and one morning around 7 a.m. (mid 60:ies perhaps) two Draken planes flew straight above our house/me - would guess something like less than 20 meters above us. I was outside: With that sound, that was one of the scariest experiences ever there. Two other scary experiences there and during my childhood and youth, not relating to the air force, was lightning hitting our house when I was inside it and I have many memories of seeing lightning striking into the ground just outside our house. Around 1980 a communications mast was constructed 50 meters from our house and later this mast became taller and nowadays has a lot of electronic stuff for mobile phone technology etc on it - there has probably not been any lightning hitting our house after that mast came up with its first version.

I`l miss that sound of the Draken ( the Kite), i grow up near F18, and could hear them all day. They have a special sound ..

i am astonished this jet was designed in the 50's, it was my favourite jet when i was a kid - as a kid it looked so hard a$$

I used to love watching from Beachy Head. Gutted I couldn't be there this year.

Old tech. Still looks Scifi. Didn't know there still is an airworthy Draken.

That noise is almost creepy😱 Great catch, so good to see a decent aeroplane displaying instead of the usual stuff we get thrown at us these days. Thanks for the memories of good old airshows!!!!👍👍👍

Im in love! was a great display!!

I remember vividly way back in 1977 at the annual Pori day airshow, two drakens coming at full speed low above runway from south. They broke the soundbarrier smack In the middle of runway and I was shocked to core as a 6y.o. They also broke many, many windows around Pori, because airfield is just 1km from city center. After that they banned breaking the sound barrier around residential areas In Finland.

Excellent filming! I like the screeching sound of the Volvo Flygmotor RM 6C, (Rolls-Royce Avon 300)

My dad flew Draken jets for danish airforce.. he loved the plane and was sad when it was replaced with the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Superb aircraft, cars,and furniture, from Sweden!

One of the most beautiful designs ever.

A masterpiece of design

WOW, cool plane.

I should have gone to watch it. There is a Draken cockpit next to a Vampire cockpit, in the Helsinki aviation museum. The Vampire looks like a chaotic and scary black jumble- whereas the Draken cockpit looks so neat and simple, as if designed by Ikea!

I love The shape of this beautiful bird: DRAGEN

I love the Dorito plane, it’s so iconic

There's no other fighter jet with even a remotely similar planform. An absolutely unique and amazing piece of engineering.

Saw this at the Midlands Airshow last year. Unfortunately the display had to be cut short due to ATC at the local airport making him wait. Amazing sight (and sound) though.

Thank you for this great filming (as usual) 👍

Some planes look ‘fast’, this one especially. Awesome.

Such a beauty of a plane!

Awesome jet.

What a silouet! Still today un earthlike!

What a treat!❤

Straight from the movie Star Wars....

YEESS! Back with Eastbourne

The best looking jet yet.

Sounds from our other-worldly friend. 😎

Draken, the first fighter jet doing the now famous Cobra manouver.

I think that the difference in sounds comes from the change of viewing (listening) angles and the change of AoA. From a rear aspect, the sound of the jet exhaust is more prominent than from a quartering or front aspect, where often aerodynamic noises can be more prominent. One should also take into account the speed of sound, which lets the sound lag behind the seen image and makes observation of this effect a bit confusing.

The Saab Draken was developed as an all-in-one fighter jet because Sweden is a small country, and we couldn't afford to develop a variety of different jets. The Saab Draken was a supersonic fighter, interceptor, and reconnaissance plane that was originally intended to be capable of delivering Swedish nuclear weapons before we decided to stop developing them. The Saab Draken is one of the few (if not the only) fighter jets that can continue toward its target even after the pilot has ejected, which makes sense if it was also intended to function as a supersonic nuclear warhead.

And that's how Dragons sound.

That is a stunning sight of the SK35 Draken 😊

THat is 2,4 uk gallons or 11 litres a second on full afterburner! Great plane but she was a thirsty one... 😎

I was watching your old Eastbourne videos the other day and you can see how far out the display is these days even a 600mm lens is no longer enough.

My father flew those planes when i was little ✈️👏🫣

That sound brings me many memories.. and as I remember the F104 had a very unique sound at approx 83% power.. a howling sound...

what a beautyfull spot !! great video

👑 👑 👑 🇸🇪

I think it was the Draken (Dragon) who accidentally discovered the Cobra maneuver during an exercise .

Like something from the UFO TV series, way ahead of its time in looks. Nice capture!