Saab 2000 MPA

The Saab 2000 MPA was Saab's proposal to turn its regional turboprop into a Maritime Patrol Aircraft, part of the family of airborne surveillance platforms derived from the Saab 2000 alongside the Erieye airborne early warning version and the Airtracer signals intelligence version. The company described it as a multi-role platform for maritime domain awareness: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), patrol and enforcement of national waters, able to work alone or in cooperation with the Saab 2000 Erieye AEW&C and other naval assets.

The offer became public at the DSEi exhibition in London in September 2009, where Saab pitched the Saab 2000 as a basis for both maritime patrol and signals intelligence tasks. According to the company's sales material, the aircraft drew on the qualities of the airliner it came from—long range, long endurance, fast transit and a high dash speed—to combine a short time to reach an incident with a long time on station. The Saab 2000 MPA datasheet listed a 360-degree maritime surveillance radar, a multi-mode electro-optical sensor, a C4I mission system, an Automatic Identification System (AIS) for shipping, an IFF interrogator, electronic support measures (ESM), a self-protection system (SPS) and SATCOM and data-link fits; the actual radar and electro-optical turret were left "to be defined" according to the customer. The intended applications ranged from tasked identification of maritime targets and maritime surveillance and reconnaissance to border security, counter-smuggling and illegal-immigration control, search and rescue, fisheries inspection and oil-slick investigation.

The performance figures published by Saab, calculated for a standard atmosphere, a sea-level airfield and nil wind, quoted a maximum endurance of more than 9.5 hours, a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles, 5.5 hours on station 200 nautical miles (370 km) from base, a maximum cruise speed of 350 knots (TAS), a patrol speed of 160 knots (IAS), a climb to 20,000 ft in 10 minutes, a take-off distance of 1,300 m and a service ceiling of 31,000 ft. The typical mission profile was a transit of 200 nautical miles to the exclusive economic zone, a patrol at 2,000 ft for 5.5 hours and a return to base with holding fuel and a diversion reserve. French sources also credit the version with anti-submarine and anti-surface capability, with the RBS 15 anti-ship missile as its intended weapon.

In January 2011 Saab confirmed to the Indian press that it had offered the Saab 2000 MPA—then presented as the "Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft"—to the Indian Navy for its medium-range maritime reconnaissance (MRMR) programme, while proposing the Saab 340 MSA to the Indian Coast Guard for its mid-tier maritime patrol (MTMP) programme. The offer did not lead to a contract.

The project took a new shape at the Farnborough air show in July 2012, when Saab unveiled the "Saab 2000 Swordfish MPA", named after the Swordfish mission system around which it was designed, and announced that it would modify a Saab 2000 as a maritime patrol demonstrator. The aircraft, registered SE-LRA, was shown to the public at that edition. Saab was eyeing potential future requirements in nations including the United Kingdom, which had been left without a maritime patrol aircraft, and had already assembled a team of local partners although no formal talks had been held with the British Ministry of Defence. The Swordfish system automatically fused and exploited the data from the sensors: the 360-degree Selex Seaspray 7500E maritime surveillance radar, an active acoustic system from Ultra Electronics for detecting submarine threats and a high-definition electro-optical/infrared turret from FLIR Systems.

The Saab 2000 MPA never found a customer. At the Singapore Airshow in February 2016 Saab announced that it would henceforth offer the Swordfish system on the Bombardier Global 6000 business jet and the Q400 turboprop, acknowledging that until then its sales efforts in maritime patrol and airborne early warning had relied on second-hand Saab 340 and Saab 2000 airframes, out of production for years, whereas most customers preferred new-build, in-production aircraft. The Q400-based variant kept the same profile of 5.5 hours on station 200 nautical miles out that had been advertised for the Saab 2000 MPA. The Swordfish name thus lived on with the new platforms, and the Saab 2000-based demonstrator remained the only example of this configuration.