Finnish Air Force practicing on public road

[Beamr]

This might be of interest to some, 3 min vid of Finnish AF F/A18's practicing take offs and landings on public roads. Sorry for the ad in the beginning, there seems to be no way around it.
P.S. add a dot after www on the link to get there

www iltalehti.fi/iltvuutiset/a/4c31de3f-afa6-4662-88a6-a0d7ec25a4d0

[Dan Gerous]

Hopefully sorted to a click on link:8

https://www.iltalehti.fi/iltvuutiset/a/4c31de3f-afa6-4662-88a6-a0d7ec25a4d0

[Beamr]

Very kind of you sir. BTW, they will be there all week. I'm not aware if there are similar exercises in many other countries.

[fallmonk]

Good video, but i have a question and please excuse my ignorance.
but is operating 5th (and 4th) generation fighters from the roadside practical now. With all the electronics and complex components involved, as highlighted in the fighter pilot tv documentary?
Also how would this affect forward deployments?

Obviously if your runways have been destroyed, you dont have much of a option.
once again just asking as a layman.

[etudiant]

Good video, but i have a question and please excuse my ignorance.
but is operating 5th (and 4th) generation fighters from the roadside practical now. With all the electronics and complex components involved, as highlighted in the fighter pilot tv documentary?
Also how would this affect forward deployments?

Obviously if your runways have been destroyed, you dont have much of a option.
once again just asking as a layman.

The maintenance per flight hour is about 50:1 and involves lots of specialized equipment. So there need to be support facilities and supplies available to turn the aircraft around.
Possibly Finland has done work on a mobile airfield concept, where the support gear would be trucked to the appropriate stretch of road, but I'm skeptical.
Here we see aircraft with no stores mostly doing touch and go fly byes. That is a long ways from airfield operations.

[kiwi grey]

In the video at about 0:41, there is a glimpse of what appears to be a "control tower" type of building.
It might even be a transportable structure - when you see what the F1 teams do these days, just about anything seems feasible!

So maybe it's not such a bare-bones infrastructure as it appears from the views of the runway / highway

[Beamr]

There is a mobile ATC unit (tower, if you like), maintenance, refueling etc available, basically everything is made mobile.
They are flying with at least Hawks this year, last year there were also a CASA C295M, a Learjet, Pilatus PC-12NG and so forth.

They make an event out of it, they even sell parking tickets for spectators to park on the nearby field (not corn :p)

There are lots of news stories with photos every year in the web, though everything is in Finnish so might not be of great interest to vast majority of people here.

I tried to attach a picture of a Hornet being turned around on the road so to say, but I can't do that yet says the pprune portal.

[Beamr]

if anyone is interested to see pictures and videos, try search words "Baana Lusi" on youtube and "Hornet Lusi" on google pictures.

Also, there is an official Finnish Air Force youtube video of these excercises (please, add the dot again after www):
www youtube.com/watch?v=_pOkdmdHBsI

This is somewhat a hot topic currently in Finland as they are currently in the process of selecting the successor for Hornet (amongst competitors like the F35, Eurofighter Typhoon, SAAB Gripen, Dassault Rafale and Super Hornet), and I'm quite confident that ability to fully operate from remote roads is a criteria.

[Old-Duffer]

Can one imagine doing that in the UK. Filling in the potholes first, removing the overhead gantries, taking out the central crash barriers - all would add to the cost and time to activate. I'm afraid that the clips of a Jaguar on the M6 are history never to be repeated in UK.

However, the concept of deployable operations is well practiced in UK and has been for several decades. I'd not be surprised to learn that the guys and gals at 38 Gp are studying options and implications even now for remote support and sustainment.

Old Duffer

[XR219]

The Swedes reckon they can deploy their Gripens into the middle of nowhere with minimal ground support:

Gripen - Always combat ready

[racedo]

Swedes do it, Russians do it, Swiss do it, Germans can do it...............

[kiwi grey]

Singapore has (well, had a decade or so ago) a motorway section where the median barrier is a line of giant rectangular "flowerpots".
A local told me these can all be moved with a forklift in less than an hour thus leaving a usable runway

[India Four Two]

kiwi grey,

It's still there on the Eastcoast Parkway, just southwest of Changi. Besides moving the flower boxes, they would probably have to knock down the lamp posts and maybe the palm trees.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/895x600/screen_shot_2019_09_11_at_22_32_53_6fcc0ac914d7021b00fc1c362 cda3490f2ba50ac.png

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/819x498/screen_shot_2019_09_11_at_22_34_09_56fcca77bb408b440c7283d7d 3ef52686b9afbee.png

I don't think the ECP runway has ever been used - it would seriously impact traffic to and from Changi, but Lim Chu Kang Road, west of Tengah has been used:

emergency runway singapore Archives - Sengkang Babies (http://sengkangbabies.com/tag/emergency-runway-singapore/)

[racedo]

kiwi grey,

It's still there on the Eastcoast Parkway, just southwest of Changi. Besides moving the flower boxes, they would probably have to knock down the lamp posts and maybe the palm trees.
I don't think the ECP runway has ever been used - it would seriously impact traffic to and from Changi, but Lim Chu Kang Road, west of Tengah has been used:



Belive quite likely that at the base there is bolt that requires unlocking for lamposts to be brought to ground level. Idea in other countries was these would be runway lights.

[South West Wanderer]

Singapore use Lim Chu Kang Road as well. Parallel to the runway at Tengah.

There's some decent YouTube of the RSAF conducting exercises on the road.

[Saint Jack]

And don't forget the Royal Air Force experimented with operating Harriers off a container ship, oh wait, no, disregard that!

[VictorWatcher]

Taiwan does this every few years as well, there are sections of the freeways that are deisgned for it. They close one of the sections to cars every year or so for a couple of days and practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhBGNr7L9Yg

[Imagegear]

While wandering around a small village near Bern with a local, I was shown barriers across the road that could be closed in seconds, a small hard standing in front of a windowless building large enough for an aircraft, even down to the taxiway centreline leading onto the road.

It was also mentioned that the "road" was not of usual construction but was constructed and finished to support operations. Many locals were reservists and could be very quickly mobilised. Very cunning these Swiss.

IG