Thailand’s Queen Suthida completed her first solo flight in a single-seat Saab JAS 39C Gripen at Royal Thai Air Force Wing 7 in Surat Thani on Thursday, with King Maha Vajiralongkorn watching the sortie and later presenting her with flowers and the Gripen Order Golden Patch. The 41-minute flight followed a conversion course for the RTAF’s Fighter-Attack Aircraft Type 20 programme at the air force’s invitation.
The queen taxied the aircraft to Runway 22 after pre-flight checks before taking off from the base in Phun Phin district in southern Thailand. Royal Household and Thai media coverage identified the flight as her first solo sortie in the Gripen, following earlier training on the two-seat JAS 39D version. She reportedly accumulated about 10 hours of flight time on the twin-seat aircraft before moving to the single-seat fighter.
The sortie places renewed public attention on Thailand’s Gripen fleet, which continues to operate from Wing 7 as the Royal Thai Air Force maintains its combat flying training pipeline. Coverage also described the queen as the first female Gripen pilot, while the broader framing of her as the first reigning queen to solo a fighter jet remains a media characterization rather than an independently established official record.