Saab History

The SAAB Scandia 90 also known as project CT for (Civilian Transport), was SAAB’s first civil airliner. It was originally developed in 1944 in conjunction with ABA (Swedish Air Lines) to replace their DC-3’s and had its maiden voyage in November 16th of 1946. The seating capacity was equivalent to the more recent SAAB 340 aircraft with approximately 30 seats.

The Scandia aircraft began to see it’s focus change when new priorities came to SAAB by the Swedish Navy request that they redirect most of their resources to the SAAB J29 aircraft instead. At this point, SAAB needed to recover their costs involved in the massive investment they already in this attempt to get into the commercial airline industry. SAAB eventually attempted to sell the Scandia production division to FIAT who expressed interest, however it was FOKKER of the Netherlands that took over the ownership of the production on May 2nd, 1954. As part of this agreement, FOKKER completed a batch of six final aircraft beginning in April of 1954 where two were sold to VASP in Brazil and four to Scandinavian Airline Systems (SAS) in Sweden. Unfortunately, shortly after this agreement was made, FOKKER’s resources ended up becoming saturated with the creation of a product line for a new generation of pressurized airplanes. This production line for the 6 Scandia 90’s by FOKKER ended in October of 1954, not long after they started. Three years later (1957), VASP in Brazil bought all of the remaining fleet of Scandia 90’s from SAS. VASP operated the Scandia 90 until it’s last revenue flight which was on July 22nd, 1969. There were a total of 18 Scandias built (1944-1954). The Scandia 90 was also the first use of the designation with the number 9 took place, marking the birthplace of the “9″ designation for civilian projects that was eventually used for future aviation (SAFIR 91) projects, and ultimately the Saab automobile car until present day.

As I mentioned earlier, the last remaining Scandia 90 on the earth is located outside in a museum in the village of Bebeduoro, Brazil in South America. This museum is titled the Museo de Armas and is managed by curator Eduardo Andreia Matarazzo.

To take a look at their website, please visit their home page, matarazzo.org.

I also indicated previously that I was told while visiting SAAB in Linköping, Sweden back in the summer of 2005 that they have tried to buy this for their 50th anniversary in 1987, their 60th in 1997 as well as their recent 70th anniversary this year, but the owners at this museum continue to ask for a figure that is extremely unreasonable, something around 25 million dollars I recall. I sure hope that some day this museum will change their mind and sell the plane to complete SAAB’s collection of their aircraft back over in Sweden. This aircraft was a monumental and historical moment in time for SAAB and needs a new home where it could be restored to perfect working order inside and out, both mechanically and cosmetically as you can see from the photos above.

Here are the Production numbers where I have highlighted the aircraft serial number that resides in the museum in Brazil.

90001 SE-BCA Prototype
90101 SE-BSA Aerovias Brasil
90102 SE-BSB Aerovias Brasil
90103 PP-XEI Aerovias Brasil
90104 PP-XEJ Aerovias Brasil
90105 SS-BSB ABA/SAS
90106 SS-BSD ABA/SAS
90107 SE-BSH ABA/SAS
90108 SE-BSE ABA/SAS
90109 SE-BSF ABA/SAS
90110 SE-BSG ABA/SAS

90111 PP-SQN VASP
90112 SE-SQQ VASP
90113 SE-SQS VASP
90114 SE-SQT VASP
90115 SE-SQR VASP - LAST ONE REMAINING
90116 SE-BSK ABA/VAS
90117 SE-BSL ABA/VAS

Source: SAAB Aircraft since 1937 by Hans G. Andersson