In this video, we talk about a Swedish plane from World War 2, the SAAB J 21, an unorthodox twin-boom fighter and ground attacker with a pusher-prop. We first talk about Sweden during the opening stages of WW2, looking at their rapid increase in military spending, short term moves to shore up their military through purchases of planes like the Fiat Cr.42, Gloster Gladiator, and Seversky P-35. We also look at some of their actions in appeasing both Allied and Axis countries, from allowing Nazi Germany to move troops through Sweden after Operation Barbarossa (and in the Invasion of Norway) to taking in thousands of Jewish refugees on the other side.
We then look at the J 21 itself, their attempt to make an advanced, homegrown fighter that could match the fighters Germany and the Soviet Union, their two biggest fears, had. We discuss the positives and negatives of the design and how it tested and compared to other fighters from the era. We then look at a post-war advancement of the J 21, the J 21R, Sweden's first jet fighter that swapped the propeller out with a jet thruster. We then look at that design and its relatively short career into the 1950's.
We then conclude with a fun fact about Ikea, because I couldn't think of another way to transition to the end the video.
