BRIDGING THE TALENT GAP


Staffing has proven challenging for armed forces and operators all around the world. Pantesjö said, “It’s a problem overall in Sweden, and I guess in other countries as well. We simply do not have enough people. At the moment, I am training just four new pilots but a wave of retirements is approaching fast. This does mean more people will leave service then enter the unit. I think we will notice this problem in 2028. It has to do with the different pension ages in Sweden. For pilots, normally they can go at the age of 55 after a certain year of service. In two years from now, a lot of people can go. I am extremely happy a couple of guys have decided to prolong their service and are choosing to stay beyond their official retirement age.”


Born in 1983, the major finds himself in an unusual position: being among the oldest active pilots in his unit, yet still part of what should be his mid-career. He said, “That’s not desirable, there should be people who are two, three, or five years older than me in that middle layer to transfer their knowledge to the younger generation.”


AVAILABILITY AND MAINTENANCE


Since 2012, Saab has had an exclusive agreement with the Försvarets Materielverk, Sweden’s defense material administration, to ensure the operational availability of the HKP15 fleet.


A significant portion of scheduled missions and training sorties are successfully completed, suggesting the fleet is performing well and the unit maintains a respectable level of operational output. “Since we have 20 aircraft, quite a few of them are available every day. If you look at how many of the planned missions we can actually fly, it’s quite a lot,” Pantesjö noted.


However, the reality on the flightline tells a different story. Pantesjö said, “Aircraft that are technically part of the available fleet may not always be immediately ready. Maintenance cycles, inspections, and logistical considerations mean some helicopters are kept in a planned rotation or held back until another becomes ready. This way, availability is more of a managed process than a simple number. For example, we are now in a training week at the Villingsberg shooting range with four of our aircraft. All four are working, but it is not always like that.”


64


May/June 2026


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