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Question: Swedish postwar ELINT and SIGINT aircraft


28ZComeback

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Can anyone identify the aircraft discussed in this article on Swedish postwar SIGINT aircraft: SAAB Sk-26, Saab Sk-31 TP-79 Hugin?  I cannot seem to find any references. Thank you!

 

https://www.intelrange.com/a-swedish-cold-affair/

Edited by 28ZComeback
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11 hours ago, tempestfan said:

Sk stands for „school“ (the Swedish Word for it), meaning Trainer. S is for Spanning (=Recce), J for Jakt - the P-51 was the J-26, was there a dedicated Recce version operated by the Flygvapnet?

The Swedish air force converted 17 of its P-51D to recon aircraft by adding a camera into the rear fuselage. These were flown by F21 in Luleå.

 

As for the usage of the S26 and S31 I think these would have been purely photo recon, with larger aircraft being used for SIGINT in order to fit all the electronics and operators.  Presumably due to the secretive nature of it all these were given Tp-designations , "transport", to (somewhat) hide their true purpose. The ones I know about is Tp82 (Varsity T-1), Tp85 (210 Caravelle III), the already mentioned Tp79 and the Tp52 (Canberra B.2, I'm not sure the Tp designation made that one any less suspicious) aka "The Pencil" because, well...

 

07ae49ea-eb9d-4e83-a56f-526b0416d364.JPE

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Hello all,

 

At least one photo recce flight was conducted over the Estonian islands Saaremaa and Hiiumaa with a modified Mustang. The pilot Lambert-Mueller found the task difficult and no further attempts were made with Mustangs. Following photo recce missions were flown with S31s (Spitfire PR.XIX) over the Baltic ports and Kola Peninsula above the Arctic Circle.

 

The first SIGINT aircraft, a heavily modified Junkers JU-86, was missing from your list.

 

An interesting detail about the "Catalina Affair" was missing from the article: A Swedish Catalina landed near the island Ruissalo in Turku (my hometown!) to pick up the the first Catalina crew rescued by Munsterland.

 

Cheers,

Antti

 

 

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Thank you sir! Great information! 

15 hours ago, Parrahs said:

The Swedish air force converted 17 of its P-51D to recon aircraft by adding a camera into the rear fuselage. These were flown by F21 in Luleå.

 

As for the usage of the S26 and S31 I think these would have been purely photo recon, with larger aircraft being used for SIGINT in order to fit all the electronics and operators.  Presumably due to the secretive nature of it all these were given Tp-designations , "transport", to (somewhat) hide their true purpose. The ones I know about is Tp82 (Varsity T-1), Tp85 (210 Caravelle III), the already mentioned Tp79 and the Tp52 (Canberra B.2, I'm not sure the Tp designation made that one any less suspicious) aka "The Pencil" because, well...

 

07ae49ea-eb9d-4e83-a56f-526b0416d364.JPE

Thank you Parrahs!!

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55 minutes ago, Des said:

Recall that there a series of articles on Swedish SIGINT in the bi-monthly Air Enthusiast before it ceased printing about a decade ago.

There was also a surprisingly detailed article, with drawings, on Swedish SIGINT Dakotas by Ben Dunnell in the March 2011 Aircraft.

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The article Des mentioned is in fact a summary of a Swedish book called "Bortom horisonten" (Beyond the horizon) about Swedish aerial reconnaissance operations during the Cold War. If you can't find the article online I can scan it for you (I have to find the magazine first).

 

Lambert-Mueller's modified Mustang is one project in my "planes-to-build" list. So far I have found only one poor quality photo of the plane.

 

Cheers,

Antti

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As far as I can tell the article itself only suggests that the Tp2 was used to search for survivors from the downed Tp79, not any form of SIGINT mission. A quick bit of googling in Swedish has also failed to produce any suggestions that the Tp2 was ever used for SIGINT, rather it appears to have been sued for ambulance duties. I also spotted another irregularity in the article where it's claimed that the B18 was a variant of the Ju86, which is incorrect, as it was a different (SAAB) design. The Swedish air force had a few Ju86Z as transport aircraft, while the SAAB 18 also existed in a recon variant, designated S18.

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