Finnish Hornets and British Eurofighters to join up on combined training missions

The Finnish Air Force is scheduled to fly air combat training missions with the Eurofighter Typhoons of a Royal Air Force (RAF) detachment based in Estonia during the summer. Individual missions will be conducted in Finland's airspace almost on a weekly basis, starting on week 25 and continuing till late August.

The mission objectives are to offer opportunities for dissimilar aircraft combat training and improve the participating airmen's skills for working in a multinational environment.

The missions will involve 2–4 Boeing F/A-18 Hornets or BAE System Hawk trainers and an equal number of Eurofighters. The Finnish aircraft will operate out of their home bases, while the RAFs assets take off and return to the Ämari air base in Estonia and will not land in Finland's territory.

Flare countermeasures deployed by exercise aircraft may be seen as bright spots of light in the sky.

Simultaneously with the Finnish-RAFmissions, the Finnish Air Force is set to conduct combined sorties with F-15s of the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) on deployment in the Baltic states.

The first missions with Baltic-based assets were flown in 2015, when participating aircraft came from Britain, Germany, and the USA. Additionally, the Finnish Air Force has for several years participated in weekly cross border training with the Norwegian and Swedish air forces in training areas straddling the borders of these nations, following the same procedures and involving identical objectives as those in place for combined training with the Baltic-based detachments.

The missions will be mounted on working days between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Most flying will be within training areas between Tampere, Jyväskylä, Oulu, Kokkola, and Seinäjoki.