A Close-Up Look at the F-35’s Highway Operations during the Baana 24 Exercise | Aviation

A newly released cockpit video gives a first-person view of the U.S. F-35s as they operated from a highway strip during the Baana24 exercise in Finland last month.

A new cockpit video offers an exclusive look at the operations carried out during Exercise Baana 24, in which two U.S. Air Force F-35As landed for the first time on a highway in Finland. The historic event, which took place on Sept. 4, 2024, saw the 495th Fighter Squadron’s Lightning II fighters operate from the makeshift airstrip in Hosio, Ranua, Finland.

The video, released on the DVIDS network a month after the exercise, offers a unique perspective on the challenges and precision required to execute a landing on an unconventional surface like a highway. From approach maneuvers to speed management and interaction with the ground support team, the footage provides an insight into what it takes to execute a safe and efficient landing in an unconventional environment.

The B-Roll footage, captured through a camera installed on the glare shield in the cockpit, includes two landing clips and two take-off clips, collected by both the aircraft. An aspect which immediately gets the eye is the reduced space available, with the narrow highway strip and the even narrower “taxiway”, the latter just slightly larger than the main landing gear’s track width.

The video starts with the first aircraft on approach, showing…