30 aircraft to join fighter tactics course’s final exercise

Both the final exercise of the Finnish Air Force’s fighter tactics course and the annual main exercise of the transport and liaison aircraft fleet will take place at the end of August, said Finnish Defence Forces in a press release on Tuesday.

The Finnish Air Force will fly actively from 24 to 30 August with two simultaneous live air exercises.

More than 30 aircraft will take part in the fighter tactics course’s final exercise, and the transport and liaison fleet’s annual main exercise will involve Allied transport aircraft.

The two exercises will be connected to each other by training missions involving both fighter jets and transport aircraft.

The objective of the Ilmataktiikka 24 live air exercise will be to train the Air Force’s key personnel in tactically challenging scenarios.

The exercise will take place from 26 to 30 August 2024 and involve more than 30 aircraft, including 22 F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets and four Hawk jet trainers. In addition, transport and liaison aircraft will take part in interoperability training missions.

“In the Ilmataktiikka 24 live air exercise, we will validate the skills of the students of the Air Force’s fighter tactics course. Each wave of the exercise will constitute a separate training event for which a specific scenario has been created. The desired end state is that the skills demonstrated in the exercise will enable the students of the fighter tactics course to be qualified in accordance with their training, for example as flight commanders and master fighter controllers. As a qualified flight commander, a pilot can assume the command of a flight of four fighter jets,” said Exercise Director, Colonel Tommi Heikkala, Deputy Chief of Staff, Air Force Command Finland.

Personnel and aircraft from all the units of the Finnish Air Force will participate in the exercise.

The main operating base for the F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets carrying out air defence duties will be Karelia Air Wing’s Rissala Air Base, while Lapland Air Wing’s Rovaniemi Air Base will host the fighter jets simulating the adversary.

Hawk jet trainers will fly from Oulunsalo, while the transport and liaison aircraft participating in the Pristine Flank 24 exercise will operate from Tikkakoski Air Base.

Satakunta Air Wing will organise the Pristine Flank 24 (formerly known as ATEX) exercise at Tikkakoski Air Base from 24 to 28 August 2024.

The event will be the main exercise of the year for the Air Force’s transport and liaison fleet. This year, in addition to the Finnish Air Force’s C-295M transport aircraft, Pilatus PC-12NG liaison aircraft and Learjet 35A/S jets, the exercise will involve Finnish Army’s NH90 helicopters and the Finnish Border Guard’s Dornier 228 surveillance aircraft.

Allied transport aircraft taking part in the exercise will be the United States Air Force’s MC-130J Commando II and the Swedish Air Force’s TP 84 Hercules.

“The objective of the Pristine Flank 24 exercise will be to train aircrew in the tactical use of transport aircraft in challenging combined air operations. The simultaneous Ilmataktiikka 24 live air exercise will enable joint training missions with fighter jets. In addition, another objective will be to train multinational air transport operations with U.S. and Swedish Allies,” said Exercise Director, Lieutenant Colonel Mikko Rautiainen, Commander of the Supporting Air Operations Squadron, Satakunta Air Wing.

The flight operations of the Ilmataktiikka and Pristine Flank exercises will take place in the airspace bordering on Rovaniemi, Kuusamo, Joensuu, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Oulu.

The air activity of the Pristine Flank 24 exercise will begin on 24 August at 9 am, and end on 28 August no later than 4 pm. The air activity of the Ilmataktiikka 24 exercise will begin on 26 August at 8 am, and end on 30 August no later than 5 pm. In both exercises, training missions will be flown daily between 9:00 am and 9:00 pm.

The scenarios of the training missions of the Ilmataktiikka 24 exercise will include both low-altitude flights, and supersonic flights at an altitude of more than 10 kilometres.

Additionally, the aircraft in the exercise will deploy countermeasures such as flares and chaff. Flares may be seen as momentary bright spots of light in the sky, and chaff may cause echoes on weather radar.