Over the Finnish line: Helsinki welcomes home first two F-35 jets

BELFAST — Finland celebrated the recent delivery of its first pair of F-35 fifth generation fighter jets today at a special ceremony hosted by the Finnish air force’s Lapland Air Wing.

“A new era began” for the Finnish defense forces when the new aircraft arrived at Rovaniemi Air Base on Sept. 18, said the Finnish air force in a statement today, adding that the combat jet fleet “will form an integral part of Finland’s air defence well into the 2060s.”

In 2021, Helsinki ordered 64 of the stealth aircraft in a deal valued at $9.4 billion as a replacement for aging US-made F/A-18 Hornet fourth-generation fighters.  

High-profile guests at the delivery ceremony included Finnish President Alexander Stubb, the country’s Minister of Defense Antti Häkkänen, Commander of the Finnish Air Force Maj. Gen. Timo Herranen, US Ambassador to Finland Howard W. Brodie, head of the F-35 Joint Program Office Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello, and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics division President Orlando Sanchez Jr.

The event also saw a flight display of a F-35, flown by a Finnish pilot, said the statement. It added that Stubb’s speech at the ceremony “emphasized the transatlantic partnership and the security of the Arctic region.”

In-country delivery of the Finnish combat jets comes amid trans-Atlantic tensions around Arctic security that have appeared to simmer in recent days, with the US, Denmark and Greenland agreeing on a pact to strengthen “common deterrence.” The joint move ended a long standoff over Washington’s threat to annex the semi-autonomous island.

“For us, the F-35 is about power projection capability, about security and about situational awareness in the Arctic region,” added the Finnish air force statement. “It is about maintaining security in northeastern Europe.”

The F-35 milestone also arrives nine months after Helsinki launched an Arctic foreign and security document taking stock of security environment changes that it said are “driven by Russia’s war of aggression, Finland’s and Sweden’s membership in NATO and the rising global interest in the Arctic and its natural resources.”

Despite not mentioning Russia outright, Herranen said today that the F-35’s “ability to detect the enemy at longer distances and at the same time be more difficult to detect […] are a necessary part of the performance capabilities.”

The Finnish air force plans on achieving initial operational capability of the F-35 in “early 2028” ahead of full operational capability “before the end of 2030.”

Lockheed is expected to continue Finnish deliveries of the aircraft through the close of 2030. Outside of the two in-country jets, a batch of eight units are based in the US for flight training and engineering.

Per the Finnish statement today, by the 2030s roughly 700 F-35 jets will be in Europe, while the future will also see “joint use and sharing of F-35 fighters, personnel and weapons systems.”