The US Air Force has released cockpit footage of one of the service’s Lockheed Martin F-35A stealth fighters completing a roadway landing in Finland.
Two jets from the service’s 48th Fighter Wing, which is permanently assigned to RAF Lakenheath in the UK, landed at a pre-designated roadway near Ranua, Finland on 4 September as part of NATO exercises dubbed Baana 2024.
While not the first time an F-35 had completed such a feat, it was the first incidence of a US-owed fifth-generation fighter making a roadway landing in Europe.
On 1 October, the USAF released cockpit footage of the touchdown, which shows the F-35 gently setting down on the two-lane strip of tarmac, surrounded by a forest of pine trees. The jet then taxis around a bend in the roadway, where ground personnel guide it into an improvised refuelling point.
In a separate sequence, an F-35 executes a touch-and-go on the same straight section of road, briefly making landing gear contact before accelerating into a climb over the Finnish forest.
A third iteration shows the two stealth fighters launching from the roadway in quick succession, from the perspective of the trail aircraft. The lead jet powers up its single Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, showering the second cockpit pilot with dust and small debris from the grassy shoulder of the roadway.
The second fighter begins taxing just moments later, right as the lead fighter can be seen lifting off from the tarmac into a setting sun.
These exercises are part of a concept for distributed operations the USAF calls Agile Combat Employment (ACE) – which calls for the use of many small, austere ground sites to supplement large bases in generating combat sorties.
The ACE focus is a response to the perceived vulnerability of established air bases to long-range precision munitions such as cruise missiles and one-way UAVs, which can be fired in dense swarms to disable critical infrastructure and destroy vulnerable combat aircraft on the ground.
In August, senior USAF leaders conceded they can no longer count on such facilities in East Asia and Europe as ground sanctuaries for combat aircraft, should a conflict ignite.
The two newest members of NATO – Finland and Sweden – alongside fellow Nordic state Norway, have long been experts at the practise of operating fighter aircraft from remote road strips.
Norway completed its own F-35A road landings in 2023 – the first such instance for the conventional take-off and landing Lightning II variant.
The USA accomplished a similar feat with the short take-off and vertical landing F-35B variant in California in August. That type is only operated by a small number of services, according to Cirium data, including the US Marine Corps, UK Royal Air Force and Italian navy.
Singapore has also signed on the acquire the F-35B.
