Sortavala 1918 - 1924 Kasinhäntä 1925 - 1939 Turkinsaari 1927 - 1939 Suur-Merijoki 1929 - 1939 Winter War 1939 - 1940

Temporary Peace 1940 - 1941 Continuation War 1941 - 44 Lapland War 1944 - 1945 Pori Air Base 1945 - 1980 Tampere-Pirkkala 1981 - 1998

10. Tampere-Pirkkala 1981 - 1998, Page 2 The replacement program for the aging Finnish Air Force interceptor force was started in 1989. In February 1990 requests were sent to three aircraft manufacturers, Dassault Aviation, General Dynamics and Saab Scania Ab for 20 single seat and five two-seat fighters and an option for 20 more. The aircraft types were not specified, but based on the requirements the offered aircraft were Mirage 2000-5, F-16A/B and JAS 39 Gripen. A new request for 60 single seat and seven two-seat aircraft was sent to the same companies on the 3rd of January 1991. On the 12th of April 1991 a request was sent also to McDonnell Douglas for the F/A-18C/D aircraft. The offered aircraft types were first evaluated in their home countries by studying the aircraft for two weeks during May-December 1991. For the second evaluation the contenders were flown to Finland in February-March 1992. MiG-29 was studied in the Soviet Union. Finnish Air Force headquarters made its proposition about the aircraft in late April 1992. The Finnish government made the fighter renewal decision in May 1992 and signed the Letter of Offer and Intent (LOA) on the 6th of June 1992. The LOA covered 57 single-seat F-18C Hornet aircraft and seven two-seat F-18D. F-18 Hornet was the clear winner in the competition. The crucial selection criteria for the Finnish Air Force was the total performance of the aircraft divided by the life cycle price. F-18 Hornet had very good flying performance, modern and effective weapon system and it was easily maintainable. The aircraft has an independent starting system (APU) and an arrester hook, which is usable in road bases. Satakunta Air Command and Fighter Squadron 21 were ordered to introduce the F-18 Hornet into Finnish Air Force service. When the introduction of the Drakens had put the Air Command on the same level as the other commands when it came to fighters, the Hornet introduction raised the Satakunta Air Command in the leading position. This was already the fifth time after the war when Satakunta Air Command was ordered to introduce a new aircraft type into Finnish Air Force inventory. A large group of pilots and maintenance personnel was sent for type conversion training in the USA. The training program is unique in the Finnish Air Force history since never before had any other aircraft program included such a lengthy and thorough training. Finnish Air Force trained 15 pilots in the United States in three groups. The training began at Lackland AFB, TX with nine weeks of Specialized Aviation English course. During the training the pilots visited NAS Kingsville, where the US Navy had just graduated the first T-45 Goshawk class. This allowed our pilots to compare the Finnish Air Force BAe Hawk training to the US Navy T-45 training in preparation for the Hornet training. Finnish pilots at  Hornet training in USA 1995. The US Navy's West Coast Hornet base NAS (Naval Air Station) Lemoore was selected to be the base for the Finnish Air Force training groups and VFA-125 the training squadron. A shorter CATII syllabus (7,5 months) was tailored for the Finnish pilots. In-flight refueling, carrier qualification and parts of the air-to-ground syllabus were left out. The training started with an intense five week ground school with lectures, Computer Based Training and simulator flights. Aviation Physiology covered ejection seat training, pressure chamber and USN water survival. The first training flights took place in R-2508 training area in eastern California in the desert valleys between the Sierra Nevada mountain ridges. Cross-country navigation flights were flown all over the USA, to the East Coast and Florida. When the basic phases were covered it was time to learn the radar and weapon systems. Along the new training phases parts of the flight syllabus was moved over the Pacific Ocean 60 miles west of Monterey in W-285 and W-283 training areas. The first Finnish Air Force two-seat F-18D  Hornet HN-461 takes off from the St. Louis Lambert Field in spring 1995. To know all the systems in the Hornet the pilots were introduced to parts of the US Navy air-to-ground (Strike) syllabus at NAS Fallon in the Nevada high desert. Basic fighter maneuvers and air combat maneuvering were started over the Sierra Nevadas in the Ovens, Panamint and Saline valleys. After the BFM and ACM phases AIM-120 AMRAAM intercepts were trained over the Pacific. Then it was time to combine the BFM, ACM and AMRAAM intercepts during a two-week Fighter Weapons Detachment at NAS Fallon, NV. VFA-127 "Desert Bogeys" were the aggressors for the detachment. Several of the "bogey" instructors were US Navy Fighter Weapons School "Top Gun" graduates. During the Fighter Weapons Det the Finn class designed a "Class Strike", where attack Hornets were covered with two sections of Hornet fighter cover. All the Fallon ranges were reserved for the strike and the highlight of week-long planning process was an air combat with almost ten F/A-18s and F-5s fighting close combat in a small area. The training in the USA was very successful because of the good attitude among the USN instructors. It was beneficial that the Finnish students were regarded as hard-working and professional. The USN training gave Finnish Air Force a good basis to continue the studies in Finland and to start the Hornet training with Finnish personnel already in 1996. 55 Finnish maintainers were trained at NAS Lemoore, CA during 1995 to operate the F/A-18. A common familiarization preceded the type conversion training with five training pipelines. There were some practice periods within the training. After the theoretical phases the students moved to on-the-job training, where the Finns tried to get as much fault inspection training as possible. The maintainers trained 2 - 3 months with real flying USN jets depending on the training pipeline. Also the faults (gripes) were real ones in the flying aircraft. US Navy naval aviators flew the first Hornets to Finland on a ferry flight from St. Louis to Pirkkala on the  7th of November 1995. The Finnish pilot training and maintenance training had been synchronized during the previous six months so that the training started on the day after the ferry flight. Differences in the older USN models and the Finnish jets were studied along with the new operational flight program software. Finnish Air Force Hornets over the Atlantic on the way to Pirkkala on the 7th of November 1995. Nine refuelings were made during the ferry flight with 50 min intervals.   Hornet, HN-465, arrives at Pirkkala 7 Nov 1995 15.30 hrs local time. The first training flight with the aircraft inspected by Finnish maintainers took place three weeks after the ferry flight on the 27th of November 1995.  Finnish Hornet training syllabi had been under development since February 1994 and now all the training flight were used to evaluate the new syllabi. Fighter Squadron 21 F-18D taxies after the first Finnish Air Force training flight on the 27th of November 1995. The Weapons Tactics Trainer (WTT) dome simulator arrived by sea to Finland in February 1996. Software installments and equipment adjustments lasted until the end of the year. The smaller Weapons Tactics and Situational Awareness Trainer (WTSAT) arrived in March 1996 and was ready for training in a few weeks just in time for the first in-country Hornet type conversion course. The US-trained Hornet instructors checked the Computer Based Training (CBT) material for the first class during spring 1996. This was no small task since the CBT had 25.000 pages and 10.000 graphics! The process was finished with  McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) before the first class and the weapons course material during summer for the first in-country Hornet Weapons Course. The Hornet project had been timed so that the Hornet Training In Finland could start in mid-April 1996. All the technical deliveries and the US training had been scheduled to support the first in-country class. US Navy flight and maintenance training, the early start in designing the Finnish Hornet syllabi and testing the new syllabi made the start of the first class possible exactly in time together with all the equipment deliveries in the spring. Pilots with previous Draken experience had been selected for the first Satakunta Air Command/Fighter Squadron 21 Hornet type conversion course. By selecting pilots with fighter experience the squadron wanted to make sure that the new Hornet flight training got off to a safe start. In February 1996 four more F-18Ds had been flown to Finland. All the jets were centralized to Pirkkala to support the training of the first pilot class. After simulator training the first F-18D flights took place in mid-June so that solo flights were flown after four dual flights just before mid-summer eve. More weapons knowledge was given to all pilots and technical personnel with the AIM-9 Sidewinder course, where the tactical portion was taught by a US Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) instructor who was also the Sidewinder subject matter specialist. During June 1996 a High AoA/Departure Training was flown in Finland together with the USMC/USN/RCAF test pilots from the F/A-18 Strike Test at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. During two weeks some 130 stalls, departures, spins and tailslides were flown with the Finnish Air Force Hornets. The goal was to give the Finnish Hornet instructors a feel for the limits of the aircraft so that the full maneuvering potential could be used during air combat. Of the test pilots one is now in Space Shuttle training at Johnson Space Center, TX and one is in the team responsible for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet flight testing at Boeing, St. Louis. The first Hornet Weapons Course took place in September 1996. To broaden the local knowledge Hughes Missile experts and USAF AMRAAM experts were brought to Finland to lecture the structure and employment of the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. In late 1996 the F-18 Hornets took part in the first road base exercises and also took part in the large exercises for the first time. A thorough preparation for the the start of the Hornet training and the diverse USN training made it possible to advance within a year from the delivery of the first jets to multi-target tactical exercises from dispersed road bases, which is the basic concept of the Finnish fighter defence. Air Force Technical School arranged three Hornet maintenance type courses instead of the planned two because the training and equipment capacity was better than anticipated. This speeded up the training schedule for the maintenance personnel. When Finavitec (former Valmet Aviation Industries) was three months ahead of the final assembly schedule, was the project doing exceptionally well. In spring 1997 the first combined Hornet conversion course for pilots from several squadrons was arranged at Pirkkala. For the first time young pilots straight out of the BAe Hawk training took part in the class. This tested the whole fighter training chain from the advanced jet training to the fighters. Summer 1997 saw the introduction of the Hornet alert operations along with the Drakens. On the 30th of October 1997 the Drakens flew for the last time officially at Satakunta Air Command and Hornets took the full responsibility of the operational alert duties. In March 1998 Fighter Squadron 21 tested for the first time the arrester hook in a road base spring 1998 saw the third Hornet class at Pirkkala. All in-country classes have been run fully by Finnish personnel.   Back to Tampere-Pirkkala 1981 - 1998 page Fighter Squadron 21 History is based on the book "The history of Satakunta Air Command" (in Finnish) by Juha Pakarinen and Jari Rajalainen. The book was published in December 1998 by Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy (ISBN 952-91-0530-4, ISSN 1455-1950). It has 397 pages and we have published parts of the Fighter Squadron 21 (and its predecessors) history on some 15 pages. Back to Fighter Squadron 21 history page

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