F-35 aircraft landing on motorway

F-35A Aircraft makes landing on Motorway

For the first time, Two Norweign Air Force F-35A fighter jets have landed on a motorway in Norway on Thursday.
Both F-35A aircrafts used a part of a motorway in central Finland during a military excercise.
After landing, both aircrafts were refueled while engines were running, a practice known as “hotpit refueling” before taking off again.

Unlike F-35B which has VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) capability, F-35A uses conventional runways to take off and land which increases the time it needs to return to base for refueling and rearming before returning to another mission.

By using the motorways as runways, aircrafts can reduce the time it takes to return to base for refueling and rearming enables quick mission turnaround ratio to provide air support to friendly forces on the ground, air and sea.

Arctic Challenge Exercise

Finland is hosting is hosting part of military exercise Arctic Challenge with NATO allies. NATO is conducting one of the largest air exercises in Europe. Other nations taking part in the exercise include France with Mirage and Rafale aircraft, Germany with Euro fighter and Finland with their FA-18 fighter jets.

Finland Joins NATO

It is also important to note here that Finland has joined NATO in April 2023 and is planning to acquire 64 F-35 JSF aircraft from Lockheed Martin. Finland borders with Russia in the east which runs 1340 Km (830 miles).

About the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter also known as Lightening is a single seat, single engine multirole aircraft with stealth capability enabling it to string deep within the enemy territory without being detected. It can carry Air to Air missiles such as AIM-9 Sidewinder, AIM-120 AMRAAM, JDAM bombs, GBU-39 SDB precision strike weapons internally. It can also carry AGM-88 HARM and AGM-158 JASSM cruise missile as a stand off missile.