Finnish Hornets and Swedish Gripens to practice operating from road runway

The Finnish Air Force will conduct a live air exercise dubbed Baana-2015. Exercise flying is set to take place from the Rovaniemi Air Base and the road strip at Hosio between September 18 and 26. In addition to Hornet and Hawk jets, tactical and light transports will take part, and the exercise schedule also calls for a combined wave with the Swedish Air Force under the Cross Border Training (CBT) scheme.Daily flying takes place from September 21 to 25 between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m. Friday September 25 is a spare day. Exercise objectives include the conduct of both dual and solo operations from a road base in both night and day conditions.

The participating Hornets and Hawks will be based at Rovaniemi and Jyväskylä-Tikkakoski, respectively, whereas the assets of the Supporting Air Operations Squadron will fly in from their home base at Tampere-Pirkkala.

A stretch of trunk road 924 to the east of Ranua will be closed to traffic at noon on Friday September 18 and will be reopened no later than 6 p.m. on Friday September 25. Signs will direct road traffic to a detour during the closure.

Two JAS 39 Gripens from F 21 Norrbotten Wing of the Swedish Air Force are set to arrive at Hosio on Wednesday September 23 as scheduled in the CBT program for the year.

Road base exercises are conducted on a regular basis on highway strips throughout Finland as an element of the Air Force's new battle concept. This exercise marks the occasion of the first CBT missions flown from a road base