First time ever -

Norway has become the first country to demonstrate the ability of the conventional takeoff and landing F-35A Joint Strike Fighter to operate from a highway. This initiative was undertaken in Finland as part of an exercise.
Utilizing suitable roadways provides air forces with valuable alternative operating locations in case their primary bases are compromised or rendered unusable. It also enables them to easily disperse aircraft, thereby reducing vulnerability. This tactic can prove invaluable in terms of complicating the enemy's targeting strategies and overall war planning.
The U.S. Marine Corps had previously demonstrated the use of its F-35Bs, capable of short and vertical takeoff and landing, in a similar manner.
Major General Rolf Folland, Chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, said in a press release,
"This is a milestone, not only for the Norwegian Air Force, but also for the Nordic countries and for NATO. This demonstrates our ability to execute a concept of dispersal. Fighter jets are vulnerable on the ground, so by being able to use small airfields - and now motorways - [we can] increase our survivability in war."
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes why Norwegian F-35A fighter operating from a road in Finland is a crucial undertaking ?
#defenseupdates #f35fighterjet #f35
🐦 Follow us on Twitter : / defense_updates
▶️ Narration by Scott Leffler (scottleffler.com)
🎵 Background Music courtesy of incompetech.com
"Giant Wyrm" Kevin MacLeod (Licensed under Creative Commons)

[@Chuck_Hooks]

F-35As are B-61 capable. Necessary to disperse F-35As to survive a first strike and deliver a second strike. Norway and Finland cooperating reminds me of the Balkans working to make each other's roads available to disperse HIMARS launchers. Well done, Allies.

[@Hairysteed]

@@skubisan If B61s were to be used chances are something has already been nuked and it's a retaliation.

[@giamannguyen797]

Nga va trung quoc :iran trieu tien: 4quoc gia nay ket dong minh rui/4thanh nay :ta ac nhat the gioi

[@herptek]

Well, hold on a minute now with the nuclear bombs. Finland also ordered 64 F-35A:s but this wasn't on the agenda then. although now that I think about it the idea starts to sound like fun. But in all seriousness, dispersal of assets is important even against a conventional first strike aiming to destroy our air force on the ground. It was deemed that the F-35A can operate from highway bases well enough.

[@bengtmowitz5012]

In Sweden we been doing this since the 50's. All Swedish fighters are built to do this( Vägbas/ Road base 60 etc concept).

[@apuuvah]

Same in Finland. The ONLY way to go, unless they are in their caves...

[@juhanivalimaki5418]

Soviet Union, including Ukraine too did partial dispersion plans. Of course Finland and Sweden to the different level, pretty much aiming at 100% dispersion. leaving empty hangars to be bombed.

[@vvh4044]

As seen in taistelukenttä 2020, fins are not waiting missiles to land on target, but commanding planes to leave the ground if missiles are about to hit the roadbase. After that the base will be some place else. For now until exposed or attacted again. Good luck for any enemy. A bit of same strategy a artillery uses after bombardment. They are not going to wait for enemy to strike back.

[@EggwardEgghands]

Finland has done it since WW2 so the concept is well-rehearsed.

[@StereoSpace]

Training to this is really smart.

[@justskip4595]

Happens about once a year. There's a massive military training exercise twice a year too. Loppusota if you're interested.

[@paanikki]

Finnish Air Force doctrine has been based on Dispersed operation for more than 50 years. Operating from small, unmanned civilian airfields and road bases is commonplace, and it is exercised regularly. Finnish road bases were originally designed for Mig21 aircraft, which has a higher landing speed than most modern fighters. Therefore, operating from road bases does not require use of arrest wires, and it is not limited to aircraft designed for naval aircraft carrier operations.

[@verdebusterAP]

As precision guided weapons are get longer range ,more lethal warheads and greater accuracy , its good to have options in case the enemy knocks your airfield your aircraft have a chance to regroup

[@aritakalo8011]

Also partly it is about atleast on some amount deterring attack in first place. If enemy can be certain "the planes are on that base in those hangars", it is a no brainer decision to hit the base with everything you got. Now mind you for example the main bases in say Finland would be hit anyway. However after that *quick relocating capable* dispersal system leads to a cat and mouse game. There is a reason places like Finland and Sweden have *tens* of dispersal road strips and also plotted out dispersals to places like small general aviation airstrips. There needs to be enough of them so that "just bombard all of them" comes resource infeasible or atleast non-desirable. After that enemy can only strike, if they have at least some idea they have pinpointed where the dispersal base is at the moment and with some probability at least some part of the base team is still there. Optimally of course locate the planes there and launch fast strike. Which leads to said cat and mouse. The idea of the base team is "setup at place X, run sorties and operations from there for a time, pack up and leave before enemy can confidently locate the base". More like the last part is "last base ground segment drives away little before the cruise missile lands". Ofcourse one of the ground bases getting hit on not having evacuated in time is always possibility and must be resiliency calculated. Concept is illustrated by the Finnish Defence Forces Battlefield 2020 video kzbin.info/www/bejne/mIXQiHaYmL6qmJosi=cWZtaum2--8TXO8N in it at 2 and half minutes it's told due to increased tensions Air force has dispersed all the squadrons to various dispersal bases from main bases. minute later it's told missile strikes are tracked in bound towards Finland, dispersal bases to quickly launch all aircraft airborne to avoid getting destroyed on ground. Base gets hit, planes have left in time, ground base elements take casualties. It is a brutal and fast based game, but pretty much only possible one in world of being in easy cruise missile range and in age of surveillance drones and spy satellites. No runway can be reinforced cratering proof. Hangars can be and has been duck deep enough to sustain even bunker buster. However it usually means limited amount of heavily fortified entrance tunnels and well now the mouths of the tunnels are the weakness. Plane might be fine in it's deep mountain cave, but it is useless plane after someone collapsed/cratered/blocked it's exit path to run way by targeting the base tunnel mouths and collapsed or rubbled them enough. Atleast until repair and clearance crews can clear up the entrances. As such the best defence of plane is simply to not be on the ground, when the ground strike hits. Which means fast mobile operations. Problem is *one needs to do that for months on end* . Wars rarely are as short as people predict them to be. It isn't simply just "disperse, they can take of", fine. The hard part is *the logistics and supply* regime mobile,robust and lenient enough to do the disperse relocate, relocate,relocate routine without pause for months. While keeping planes air worthy. That is the hard part. Plane being able to land and take off from road is just the first face bare minimum necessary ability and not at all single handedly sufficient factor for "dispersing will work". For example if it takes too long to wake up the plane and get engines running... congratulations, plane just in pieces on ground. Since when enemy border is 200 km away and nearest base 500 km away... you only get warning in range of less than 30 minutes air alert warning from the cruise missile launch until hit lands. Meaning the plane better be able to be up from ground within say 10 minutes of alert or it's sitting duck. It must be capable of that, not during short intense alert period. It must be on that alert status *through the whole war* .

[@robandcheryls]

Love your stuff after all these yrs. 🇨🇦 Veteran

[@johngurney495]

Amazing!!!!

[@colejohnson777]

Lol I had a feeling it was Finland 😂 they've been doing that for years

[@apuuvah]

For as long as we've had fighters.

[@bestestusername]

Scandanavian countries been doing this for decades its how they operate

[@justskip4595]

I do not know too much about the Scandinavians. Finland isn't one of them. Nordic or even Fennoscandia if you want Scandinavia + Finland but exclude Iceland.

[@thereal4114]

I always assumed this was possible. Seams like a non issue landing a jet on a road.

[@roderickcampbell2105]

It's not a non issue and it's a misnomer to just characterize these blacktops as "a road".

[@norsenomad]

The F-35 Drag Chute System - The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) F-35A CTOLs, delivered from 2017, have a unique feature that distinguishes them from other countries’ version of the Joint Strike Fighter: a drag chute that is used to slow the landing of the fighter jet on icy runway conditions. Note that many of Norway's short runways are located between the Polar Circle and 71st parallel North, and this is an area of strategic importance considering the shared border with Russia (and this Putin creature now gone rogue...). The Norwegian drag chute is mounted as a removable pod between the aircraft’s vertical stabilizers (the pod can be seen in this video). The pilot can activate a switch when the chute is needed, and this will open the pod doors and release the drag chute. This is a Kevlar parachute that creates aerodynamic drag, also known as air resistance, which also adds extra downforce on the aircraft, helping it to stabilize and slow down more quickly in icy, high-wind conditions during winter season in the Arctic regions of Norway. It was a team of engineers from Lockheed Martin and the U.S. and Norwegian government that joined forces to develop the critical drag chute capability for the RNoAF. Later, Denmark and The Netherlands have shown interest in the Drag Chute System for their new F-35As. And maybe also the fresh NATO member Finland, too, with their recent order for F-35As?

[@markotark]

I’m from Finland and i’m pretty sure i heard that we were getting 64 block 4 F-35A’s with similar mosifications due to weather as Norway…

[@norsenomad]

@@markotark Thanks. Yes, very likely that Finland will go the same ❄️ route. I recently read your F-35 Programme update from the Finnish Air Force, issued 15 Sep 2023, as presented by Major General J-P Keränen. Glad to learn that Finland will receive your first F-35A airframes alredy in 2025 at Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Arkansas (location is preliminary, stationed there only for training of Finnish pilots). And first operational F-35 to arrive in Finland scheduled for 2026 - that’s soon, too. Excellent choice, for both Finland and Norway. For close cooperation 🇫🇮🇳🇴

[@MichaelRacer]

The Drive recently published an article about this.

[@apuuvah]

In Finland fighters WILL operate from random road strips, as they are VERY expensive and invaluable and thus very high priority for enemy strikes. I'm sure our mobile GBAD's will be close enough to take out possible incoming missiles or kamikaze drones, for additional security.

[@MyFluffyClouds]

How do you get around landing at busy times such as after the working day or when the school run is on? I suppose they have to choose their time to land on a highway carefully. I can not imagine being in a traffic que behind any kind of jet fighter.

[@paanikki]

All road bases have parallel roads which are used to pass the road base. Therefore the road base can be used continuously for extended periods, and the disruption for road traffic can be kept minimal. The designated road bases are built outside urban areas, and there are none in immediate vicinity of the largest cities. Therefore, there is no extensive commuter traffic on those roads.

[@MarkLandrebe-ef5yd]

This is not very surprising, when the Expressways were built in the middle of the 20th century in the USA, they were built with our military in mind.

[@doujinflip]

The Interstates are really designed for truck convoys and not aircraft, but straight stretches without overpasses could be turned into an airstrip.

[@MarkLandrebe-ef5yd]

@dou. . . I know that, but the interstates were a " backup ", for air force.

[@Davethreshold]

Question: From a dead stop, what is the distance for the F35A to take off? IOW, for its wheels to leave the ground?

[@glacieractivity]

8000 ft (2.5 km) is required. The Swedish JAS 39 Gripen can handle much shorter strips of road, but Finland (still flying F-18, soon to fly F-35) has like Sweden also adopted their road network for their conventional take-off and landing aircraft). Norway can not do this because of topography as any aircraft would end up on the side of a mountain if trying to land on Norwegian highways😆

[@juhanivalimaki5418]

Internal load only or with heavy external load? With only internal load, less than many with external load. And definitely less than 2.5km, More like 700-800m would be my guess.

[@Davethreshold]

@@glacieractivity Thank you very much!

[@Davethreshold]

@@juhanivalimaki5418 Thank you and have a great day!

[@Cat_enjoyer123]

Norge 🇳🇴

[@Retly_Ai]

The timing of this with the recent F-35 crash is ironic.

[@petertimowreef9085]

With almost 900 F-35s in service right now the irony turns into coincidence.

[@Retly_Ai]

@@petertimowreef9085 planes fall out of the sky. who knew

[@-JA-]

❤️🇺🇸❤️

[@auro1986]

do this for your f15, f16, and that f22. isn't f35 vtol?

[@fixpontt]

only the marine corps verison F35B is vtol, these are the air force verison F35A

[@andrewwilson6085]

Harriers were doing this as long ago as 1970s ,! One once operated from a coal yard in London and flew across Atlantic!

[@theldun1]

Saab built most of their jets to land and take off from roadways.

[@jacksonteller1337]

They aren't the only one all western tactical aircraft can. There is a beautiful video of the F-104 taking off from the autobahn in the seventies. We did the same with the same aircraft, NF-5 and F-16.

[@eric57016]

​@@jacksonteller1337a highways were designed 50 b52s

[@verdebusterAP]

Sweden (not saab) basically wrote the book on force dispersal. In the advent of their bases are knocked out, the forces have several options at their disposal The US does the same thing but with difference sites called hasty and aircraft With USMC. their concept is F-35B supported by MV-22 carrying personnel and CH-53K carrying fuel and weapons The much larger concept used by USAF and USMC is KC/MC-130s carrying everything and setting up a hasty location for aircraft land , refuel ,rearm and depart The benefit is that enemy keeps guessing but support aircraft are at risk Sweden concept keeps the enemy guessing but the enemy is not likely to target roads because at the end of the day, they need them too Paved roads are far easier to use than rough country

[@Yaya-wi8pb]

Lol and where is SAAB now....have they called TaTa to be able to start them like the Brits and the rest of the Eurotrash vehicles ? 😂

[@Anders_Eriksson]

Well you can land any fighter on a road if it's long and wide enough. 😏

[@niweshlekhak9646]

This might be result of Canada demanding CF-35 variant instead of F-35 A.

[@hermanmusimbi4337]

The CF-35 is just an F-35 with a drogue chute. Its the same as the norwegian variant. There are no differences betwween the two.

[@petertimowreef9085]

I love it when operators use their US weapon systems in ways the US themselves doesn't. They're the biggest and best at everything but I bet landing F-35 on highways is not a capability they train on.

[@dnguyen9747]

No, this is nothing new. It depends on the host country. The US doesn't need to use its highway during war time. If US bases located in the US are hit, it would most likely meant we're in a full nuclear war and the point is moot.

[@petertimowreef9085]

@@dnguyen9747 Who are you replying to...? You're denying points I never made.

[@user-ul2xf5wn7x]

They imitate the training that took place two weeks ago between Russia and Belarus, and Russian fighters landed on a highway in Belarus 😁

[@Orbital_Inclination]

It's not imitation. This kind of training has been happening for over 50 years by a whole host of nations.

[@azjaguar]

Good! Now use the roads along the perimeter of #Poland to defend the #Ukrainians against missile attacks from the legitimate horizon of the theater of war north!

[@petter5721]

Operational cost per flight hour: - Gripen E, 9.000$/h - Rafale, 17.000$/h - F16 block 50, 18.000$/h - Eurofighter Typhoon, 20.000$/h - F/A-18 Super Hornet, 24.000$/h - F35A, 31.000$/h

[@tbolt2948]

Don't forget to put a leash on them so you don't loose them! Putting up all those lost Panther posters is a *itch!

[@roopeshbabu9439]

In India this was done a way back 😊 push pride of us in same way pumping air

[@roderickcampbell2105]

Sorry Roop. This was not done by India a way back. This an F-35 and India did not have any F-35's "a way back". Also, I notice a complete lack of reference for your claim. And "push pride of us" ?Now, what is that supposed to mean?

[@xkeyscore1120]

Didn't one just land in a swamp?

[@wallacejeffery5786]

Why is this news?

[@juzanewbie6194]

I dunno, but, tbh it's just an update I guess. and to be precise, its a Defense Update as the name of this vlog would imply.

[@roderickcampbell2105]

@@juzanewbie6194 Well said Juza. It's an update Wallace.

[@svenhaheim]

If they tried that on Norwegian roads there would be 2 coffins and a very large replacement bill for the Norwegian government.

[@ronnysundt3249]

That is not accurate. Lots of places suitable and some with tunel hangars.

[@svenhaheim]

That is very accurate, you cant have driven much in Finland the Roads are 10x the quality of Norwegian roads.

[@ronnysundt3249]

@@svenhaheim It may be right on average, but what does that have to do with anything? That does not change the fact that many places in Norway are suitable and in more than good enough condition to function as landing strips.

[@svenhaheim]

@@ronnysundt3249 Very few places in Norway are suitable,both Swedish and Finnish road systems were designed with this feature in mind. No system thought was put into the Norwegian network.

[@ronnysundt3249]

@@svenhaheim We have a very different geography though but it should be doable to implemented here as well.

[@tkmmkt6569]

Am I the only one who isn’t impressed by this… ? What’s the big deal… a highway is extremely similar to a runway.. It’s not like some great leap in technology

[@teemup9247]

It is not. The roads are built with this in mind. The bigger issue is the maintanance, logistics and protecting the "mobile" air base.

[@octonoozle]

That's nothing. Have you ever seen an F-35B take off from a trampoline?

[@ruger8412]

First!!

[@rudolfabelin383]

Anyone else thinking Sweden? Greetings from Sweden

[@rahtikone]

Do you have civil war bombs and shooting every day 💔 Sweden is kaput!

[@Nathillien]

3:20 "no special arrangements"??? The width of that road section is tripled (as seen in these pictures) just for this feature.

[@mukkaar]

These sections of road have been there for decades. There are many such parts that have been designed to explicitly act as runways. So no special arrangements is true.

[@anssiluomaranta34]

In peacetime exercises it is normal to have more safety margins. In a real war you can afford to take more risks.