Sweden

On this page you will find a selection of my work for Swedish armed forces and about military events in Sweden.

Please feel free to download some PDF copies of my published work for non-commercial purposes.

If you work in the Swedish armed forces and you would like to hear about me from someone you may know, I have personally met and worked closely with the following persons who are well aware of the work I do:

A. Gustafsson (F21), M. Jedby (LSS), L. Levin (F21), M. Rosenquist (LSS).
_{(first names are withheld for privacy reasons, ranks because they change over time)}

Dirk Jan de Ridder

Flying Psychologists, in Combat Aircraft (July 2017)
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Knights of the North, in AirForces of the World (September 2017)
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“During the last part of the QFI [Qualified Flying Instructor] course we take volunteers ‘from the street’, generally with a connection to the Swedish Armed Forces, and the instructors are supposed to teach them how to fly in three weeks. They will fly once every day from day two. QFIs have to put theory into practice and really adapt. We schedule some special sorties that we know can be confusing in terms of communication between the instructor and the student.”

Maj Marcus Jedby
about an aspect of instructor pilot training that is unique in the world

“Winter weather can be really cold and really dark with snowstorms, but it can also be crispy weather with blue skies. Then it is just fantastic, easy flying. In peacetime we have some limitations, but that is just for the crew. When it is really, really cold it is harder to work and maintenance guys’ hands may get frozen, so we think about the crew instead of the aircraft. We have a limitation that we normally don’t fly if it’s colder than minus 25 degrees [Celsius]. We can do it if it’s something we need to do, but when it takes a while for the SAR helicopter to arrive, you can actually freeze to death quite quickly.”

LtCol Anders Gustafsson
about winter weather at their homebase Luleå near the Arctic Circle