The United States Air Force has declared that the F-35 fighter “needs support from other aerial platforms” to be able to wage war in nowadays and future conflict. This means that F-35 cannot wage war all by its lonesome. How the United States Air Force has thought it through it is that the F-35 will fly forward as a sensor plane backed by “Shooters” in the back. So that F-35 will use her sensors and data Fusion capabilities to pick up targets for the shooting planes. The shooters would most likely be older “teen Fighters”, F-16s and F-15, mostly F-15s. The F-22 Raptor can also fill the bill but as it is even more stealthy than F-35 it is even more probable that the Raptor will serve as the sensor of this hide and seek game. Even the F-22 is backed up by the Arsenal planes in this game. There has even been some discussion that old but mighty B-52s might be converted into arsenal planes. Think how many Meteors can be fitted into one of those!

So if we take for granted that the United States Air Force is not lying. This implies that the F-35 cannot be the sole vehicle of the Finnish Air Force. The F-35a would need to be backed up by “some other fighter planes” . So this is where the Air Force’s musings about buying two different fighter planes stems.

It is known that Denmark and Norway have decided to buy the F-35. But as all the above is true it is more than “very likely” that both the Denmark and the Norway will be shopping for “some other fighters” as well in the future. This would only be sensible as otherwise it would be impossible to fill the bill that the nation’s defense demands. I hope the Danes remember the nuking practice VVS held against Bornholm some years ago. The Norvegians can buy up as many fighters as they want by as I’m sure that their skiing unions “lip balm monies” will not be spent next couple of years untill the seas calm again, so that might suffice to buy 100 “other fighter planes”. I’m not sure the Denmark can do it on the other hand. They do not have skiing Union as far as I’m aware.

also a writer in Finnish military journual, “Sotilasaikakausilehti” wrote that Russia might see buying of “stealth fighter bomber like F-35” will be seen in Russia as a threat to Pletsk Space Center, and this might provoke offensive actions by the Russia. The writer to also warns the finnish not to became a hostile NATO forward base against Russia. (I will not include a link to voice writing as it is in Finnish and I read it in a closed group in Facebook.) So he is more or less in the lines with A. Dugin. As I am dismayed to see many of our retired army top brass are.

So one has to wonder are the money’s there for the F-35 and her shooter plane? It would make sense to get, say 20-30, F-35s to be the “deep strike platforms”, and to be backed up by some of the European HX candidates as the main platform of the Finnish Air Force. Say 60-80 fighters. This might provide the Finnish Air Force that were winning capabilities it would need in our neck of woods in 30 or so years to come. As the S-300/400 system suffered a bit of an embarrassment in Syria couple weeks back. S-300/400 system was unable to do anything about US Tomahawk attacks on Syria AF base.