Finnish Hornets take off from roads as part of the training.
The following video of Finnish Air Force F-18s departing from a public road was filmed during Ex. Warkaus 2011 at on Highway 5 in Joroinen Finland. Such kind of training, has been part of the standard training conducted mainly in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe since the Cold War.
With the dissolvement of the Warsaw Pact, highway take-offs and landings have become less frequent. However, the threat of Russian bombers violating the airspace of Baltic countries requiring QRA intervention is still alive.
David Cenciotti is a freelance journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written four books.
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