Forget NGAD, GCAP, or FCAS: Sweden Is Asking If ‘Fighter Jets’ Are Now Obsolete

Forget NGAD, GCAP, or FCAS: Sweden Is Asking If ‘Fighter Jets’ Are Now Obsolete

For years, Saab was Europe's outlier, the one major builder openly questioning whether the answer to the sixth-generation fighter was even a crewed jet, sketching a fleet of drones instead. That looked eccentric next to the Franco-German FCAS program, Europe's €100 billion flagship. In June 2026, FCAS's crewed fighter collapsed without a single prototype flying, killed by a corporate turf war, and Saab's unconventional bet suddenly looks less li…