J29D

J29D

J29D

Sweden

V Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
9.0	8.3	8.3

Class:

PREMIUM

Fighter

Jet fighter

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Description

The J29D Tunnan is a gift rank V Swedish jet fighter with a battle rating of 9.0 (AB) and 8.3 (RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.93 "Shark Attack".

When conjuring up thoughts of fighter jets, many would initially think of a sleek, weapon-laden fast jet which would almost rival a hot-rod in the car world. When presented with the J29D, most people would cock their head to the side with a puzzled look on their face. It's a good thing that fighter jets are not determined by looks alone! The J29D is, for lack of a better phrase, a "wolf in sheep's clothing", initially laughed at as being the "chubby kid on the block", but once up in the air, it is quickly realised that this rotund little fighter is a dynamic powerhouse!

While many other nations were fixated on designing straight-wing aircraft, the Swedes were busy exploiting the knowledge of former Messerschmitt engineers in implementing swept wings onto their fighters. With this and other improvements, the J29D was fast, not supersonic but during trials was pushing 900 km/h, and handled like a dream, being extremely quick and agile. The nose of the aircraft was bristling with four 30 mm ADEN autocannons and various types of suspended ordnance could be outfitted, including light rockets, heavy anti-ship rockets, air-to-air rockets and guided missiles. Sweden didn't have the money to develop aircraft specifically for a combat role, so they designed their J29D to do it all and do it well. Depending on the load-out, the J29D could fly like a fighter, interceptor, bomber or a combination of the three. This functionality comes in very handy as in-game spawns can lead to a map with specific requirements and the pilot will have no problems configuring the weapons of this aircraft to fit the mission, whereas some other contemporary fighters are quite limited in their options.

If not kept in check, the J29D can quickly become the bully on the block hard-charging into the battlefield, wreaking havoc and then departing without a second thought. If two fighters are headed your way, your best bet will be to take out the J29D first or it will likely nab you in the rear and send you down in flames.

General info

Flight performance

When flying the J29D it is hoped that enemy pilots will take one look, chuckle and not take the rotund Swedish fighter seriously, only to learn the hard way they were wrong. The J29D has the speed, agility and ordnance to be considered a powerhouse in the sky. Being outfitted with an afterburning engine, the J29D can fly upwards of 1,000 km/h and boosts up to altitude at a whipping 55 metres per second. This allows the fighter to get in and out of contested areas to engage its targets of choice. This fighter was built for speed and agility and uses these characteristics to show up other aircraft which may be faster or bulkier to sidestep their attacks and jump back in to nab the kill. The way the four ADEN cannons are mounted when the J29D lines up a target and fires, it is almost like a 30 mm shotgun being fired off and a tight spread of 30 mm rounds head downfield, when impacting another aircraft, rarely is there enough left of the plane to fly.

The J29D is as comfortable up at altitude as it is down at just above ground level. The fighter is a stable platform when it comes to ground attack with good acceleration characteristics when the time comes to peel off the ground targets and manoeuvre back up to altitude with the other fighters. Being specially designed to reduce as much drag as possible, the swept-back wings help extend the breakage limits of the wings, especially when this fighter is in a dive.

Characteristics
Stock
Max Speed (km/h at 0 m - at sea level)		Max altitude (meters)	Turn time (seconds)		Rate of climb (meters/second)		Take-off run (meters)
AB	RB		AB	RB	AB	RB
1032	1027	13500	29.2	30.8	11.8	8.3	800
Upgraded
Max Speed (km/h at 0 m - at sea level)		Max altitude (meters)	Turn time (seconds)		Rate of climb (meters/second)		Take-off run (meters)
AB	RB		AB	RB	AB	RB
1,048	1,040	13500	28.8	29.0	33.6	22	800

Details

Features
Combat flaps	Take-off flaps	Landing flaps	Air brakes	Arrestor gear
✓	✓	✓	✓	X

Limits
Wing-break speed (km/h)	Gear limit (km/h)	Combat flaps (km/h)	Max Static G
			+	-
		520	~11	~5

Optimal velocities
Ailerons (km/h)	Rudder (km/h)	Elevators (km/h)	Radiator (km/h)
< 650	< 640	< 450	N/A

Compressor (RB/SB)
Setting 1
Optimal altitude	100% Engine power	WEP Engine power
0 m	2,070 kgf	2,484 kgf

Survivability and armour

Armour

• 64 mm bulletproof canopy windscreen
• 10 mm steel plate behind pilot's seat
• 10 mm steel plate in nose

The stout little J29D is a sneaky little fighter which might be underestimated during a head-on. A 64 mm bulletproof windscreen is in place which sloped provides 165 mm total protection allowing the pilot to survive a few shots in a head-on attack. However, unless highly experienced, pilots should avoid head-ons especially against aircraft such as the Super Mystere B2 and the G.91 YS which also feature 30 mm DEFA 552 cannons or additionally for the B2, the AA.20 air-to-air guided rockets of which the J29D will have a hard time standing up to.

Armaments

Offensive armament

The J29D is armed with:

• 4 x 30 mm Akan m/55 cannons, nose-mounted (100 rpg = 400 total)

The J29D like many of the fighters of the time got away from machine guns and were outfitted with harder-hitting autocannons, in this case, 30 mm ADEN cannons. The cannons are clustered around the central air-intake of the aircraft resulting in optimal fire control as convergence is not an issue, however, the pilot must still correct for bullet drop for the 30 mm rounds. The four ADEN cannons only have ??? rounds per gun which require the pilot to exercise trigger control so not to waste ammunition, however with these harder hitting rounds, only a quick burst is needed to send an aircraft down in a flaming heap.

Suspended armament

The J29D can be outfitted with the following ordnance:

• Without load
• 24 x m/55 rockets
• 14 x m/49A rockets
• 14 x m/51 rockets
• 4 x m/49 rockets

Usage in battles

J29D is a fast jet capable of reaching high speed, at start it can be pretty slow, but it can still climb pretty good. J29D have the chance to fight supersonic jets at its BR which it can't hunt down by itself, J29D is best used in teamwork with other jets to either catch up to the enemy plane or make them do manouvers to bleed some speed so J29D can catch up. If faced with subsonic jet it can keep up with it and stay on its tail thanks to the manouverbility of the J29D. For the daredevils the J29D got a excellent armarment of choice to do head-ons but that would be best put to use if no teammate around to help you fight the enemy. Because the J29D at start have slow acceleration makes it hard to intercept enemy but will work great later when it have worked up its speed.

J29D can also be used as a excellent ground attacker but for more experienced players who are used to aiming the unguided rockets. Lacking of bombs it got a variety of rockets designed for different targets which can take out soft and hard targets. With most loads having more than 10 rockets make it able to take out a few ground targets with a experienced hand. But the four thirty millimeter guns with right belt can inflict heavy damage upon soft and somewhat hard targets and deals with them quickly.

Even as a excellent fighter it is, it got dangerous enemies to it supersonic jets like MiG-17 and Anti-Air Missile holding jets like G.91 YS and Swift F.7. But even these can become a prey for the J29D.

Modules

Tier	Flight performance		Survivability	Weaponry
I	Fuselage repair	Compressor		Offensive 30 mm	m/55
II			Airframe		m/49A
III	Wings repair			New 30 mm cannons	m/51
IV		Engine	Cover		m/49

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Fast and agile
• Multi-role aircraft (fighter/bomber/interceptor)
• Four nose-mounted 30 mm Akan autocannons

Cons:

• Rotund - larger target profile
• Subsonic aircraft flying against supersonic aircraft

History

Following World War II, Sweden felt that they had fallen behind in technological advancements when it came to military aircraft and strove to rectify the situation while beefing up they considered was their current weak air defence. Jet propulsion technology was cutting-edge and Sweden was not to be left out. In 1945, Sweden's leading aeronautical firm began to work on design ideas of potential future fighter aircraft. Through a design contest, a clear winner emerged which was a barrel-shaped fighter which promised to be the faster and more agile of the proposed aircraft, this fighter was given the codename "R 1001".

Initially designed with a straight wing, newly acquired German research data and even some Messerschmitt engineers themselves who fled to Sweden made the recommended change to wings with a 25-degree sweep, which highly stabilized and reduced the aircraft's drag as it approached the sound barrier. Adding to the aerodynamics of the wing shape, it was decided to not house the landing gear in the wings, but instead to have them retract into the fuselage of the aircraft. Wind-tunnel testing led to the refinement of wings and the fuselage of the aircraft. A straight-through airflow (from nose to engine to exhaust) was determined to be the best and easiest course of action for this aircraft and though initially, the de Havilland Goblin turbojet engine was to be used, it was determined that the newer de Havilland Ghost engine was already configured for a central circular air intake and would require the least amount of modifications to implement.

Though through testing many faults and problems developed, each of these was addressed and mitigated so that in September 1948, the Saab 29 prototype was ready for its initial flight. The test pilot chosen for this flight was Englishman, Squadron Leader Robert A. "Bob" Moore. The test flight lasted for a half of an hour and after a successful landing, Moore commented on the aircraft stating that "on the ground, it's an ugly duckling – in the air, a swift." Like many aircraft which pick up a nick-name due to a specific feature or shape, the J 29 became known as the "Flygande Tunnan" (The Flying Barrel) or just "Tunnan" for short. Initially thought of as degrading, the nick-name Tunnan became the officially adopted name for this fighter.

Starting in 1948, production began and ran through 1956 when all-in-all, five variants of the J 29 (J 29A, J 29B, S 29C, J 29E, and the J 29F) were produced and put into active service. A total of 661 Tunnans were rolled off of the assembly room floor which over the years and out of all of the Saab aircraft produced, was the largest production run for Saab.

Devblog

While Sweden traditionally imported a great deal of military tech, including in its aircraft, Swedish aeronautical engineers nevertheless developed and built combat aircraft of their own design. Like the leading world powers, in the immediate post-war years Sweden focused its research capabilities on jet-powered aircraft. Even before the outbreak of World War II, research into jet engines was already taking place in Sweden, and the war gave industry experts the opportunity to acquire priceless experience studying the progress made by other countries, Germany in particular.

At the beginning of 1945, a project to build the first jet-powered fighter was born deep in SAAB headquarters. Immediately after the end of the war, Swedes bought the license to produce turbojet engines from the British company de Havilland, and they began converting their J-21 piston-engine fighters to jet-engine fighters. With the arrival of the new Ghost engine from the Brits and promising research into swept wings, SAAB began developing a fundamentally new kind of fighter, initially planned to be fitted with a jet engine. Within a short time, the Swedish Air Force received the J29 Tunnan. Named after the Swedish word for "barrel", based on its shape.

The Tunnan was an awkward-looking machine, but one with superb flight characteristics for the time, enabled by its swept wings. Judge for yourselves: successful testing took place in 1948, followed by mass production in 1951, and by 1954 the J29B modification set the world speed record in a closed circuit. That's impressive!

Media

Videos

Saab 29 Tunnan - jaglavaksoldier

Waddington International Airshow 2013, Saab 29 Tunnan - greeymen

See also

Comparable aircraft

• M.D.450B Ouragan
• Super Mystere B2
• Hunter F 1
• MiG-9
• MiG-15
• F-86
• La-15

External links

• [Devblog] SAAB J 29D Jet Powered Fighter
• (militaryfactory.com website) - Saab J29 Tunnan (Barrel) - Single-seat jet-powered fighter aircraft
• (fighter-planes.com website) - J29 Tunnan SAAB
• (plasticfantastique.com websites) - Walk around the SAAB 29 Tunnan (Picture gallery)

Sweden jet aircraft
Fighters	J21RA
	J29A · A29B · J29D · J29F
	J32B
	J34
	J35A · J35D
	JA37C · JA37D · JA37DI · JA37DI F21
	JAS39A · JAS39C
Strike aircraft	A21RB
	A32A · A32A Röd Adam
	A28B
	AJ37 · AJS37
	SK60B · SAAB-105G
Export	SAAB-105OE
Finland	▄Vampire FB 52A · ▄MiG-21bis · Saab J35XS