{"id":65572,"date":"2026-06-19T18:16:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=65572"},"modified":"2026-06-19T18:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:30:19","slug":"finland-shows-spanish-ef-18-fighter-jets-operating-from-a-road-in-karelia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/06\/19\/finland-shows-spanish-ef-18-fighter-jets-operating-from-a-road-in-karelia\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland shows Spanish EF-18 fighter jets operating from a road in Karelia"},"content":{"rendered":"

NATO has concluded today the Ramstein Flag 26 exercise, important maneuvers with two very different scenarios.<\/p>\n

Spanish EF-18 fighter jets and an F-35B with tiger stripes operating on roads in Finland<\/a><\/rel>
\nThe aerial refueling of an Airbus A400M from Spain to F\/A-18 fighters from Finland<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

As we saw here on Wednesday, one of these scenarios in this exercise was Spain and the other was the Nordic countries<\/a>. The Spanish Air Force was present in both theaters, sending several EF-18 Hornet fighters from Wing 12 and an A330 MRTT tanker aircraft from Wing 45 to Finland<\/a>. The Spanish fighter jets operated from Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4, home of the Finnish Air Force Academy in Tikkakoski, and the A330 MRTT was based in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Until yesterday, images of the Spanish fighter jets participating in this exercise have been scarce. This Thursday, the Finnish Air Force published two sets of photos of the Spanish EF-18s<\/strong> (here<\/a> and here<\/a>). In four of these photos, we can see at least three of the EF-18 Hornets from Wing 12 that flew to Finland. Above, we see the single-seat EF-18M C.15-56 (12-56)<\/strong>, which we already saw on Wednesday in a video published by the Finnish Air Force.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

These images were taken during a visit by Spanish fighter jets to the Karelian Air Wing of the Finnish Air Force<\/strong>, which operates its F\/A-18C Hornet fighters from Kuopio Airport in Rissala, 322 km northeast of Helsinki and 172 km from the Russian border.Above, we see an F\/A-18C from H\u00e4vitt\u00e4j\u00e4lentolaivue 31 (H\u00e4vLLv 31)<\/strong>, the 31st Fighter Squadron of the Karelian Air Wing, specifically HN-423. Next to the aircraft we see a member of the ground staff from Wing 12, wearing arid woodland camouflage uniform, and a member of the ground staff from H\u00e4vLLv 31. The Finnish Air Force operates 53 F\/A-18Cs and 7 F\/A-18Ds<\/strong>, which are divided into two squadrons: the aforementioned H\u00e4vLLv 31 from Karelia and H\u00e4vitt\u00e4j\u00e4lentolaivue 11 (H\u00e4vLLv 11) based in Rovaniemi, Lapland.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Finnish Air Force has described this as a \"Hornet cross-maintenance\"<\/a>, noting the following: \"Spanish EF-18 Hornet fighters visited the Karelian Air Wing as part of Exercise #RamsteinFlag.<\/strong> Finnish and Spanish Hornet mechanics jointly carried out turn inspections and hot refueling of the aircraft.\"<\/em> Above, we see one of the Spanish single-seat EF-18Ms<\/strong>, receiving signals from a ground crew member of H\u00e4vLLv 31, accompanied by a ground crew member from Wing 12. The Spanish and Finnish Hornets have very similar livery<\/strong>, but in this case, we know it is a The Spanish aircraft is equipped with AIM-2000 IRIS-T air-to-air missiles on its wingtip pylons. Finnish F\/A-18C\/D aircraft do not use this type of missile.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The fighters from Wing 12 that have flown to Finland include a two-seat EF-18BM model<\/strong>, as we saw on Wednesday. Here we see it taking off from Kuopio. It is the CE.15-12 (12-75).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Here we see another photo of the EF-18BM CE.15-12 (12-75)<\/strong>, followed by one of the EF-18M single-seat aircraft. On both aircraft we can see AIM-2000 IRIS-T air-to-air missiles on the starboard wingtip pylon.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, yesterday afternoon the Finnish Air Force published a report on this exercise on its website<\/a> highlighting that this is the first time Spanish and Polish fighter jets have participated in a NATO exercise in Finland<\/strong>. The report includes this photo of two of the Spanish aircraft during the dispersed operations exercise carried out on Regional Road 551 between Karttula and Tervo, on a stretch that serves as an auxiliary base for the Karelian Air Wing. First we see the single-seat EF-18M C.15-69 (12-27) and behind it a two-seat Hornet<\/strong>, most likely the EF-18BM CE.15-12 (12-75), as Finnish Hornets usually fly with only one external fuel tank on their ventral pylon.<\/strong> We see the C.15-69 armed with two IRIS-T missiles on its wingtip pylons<\/strong>, but with the fuselage air-to-air missile pylons empty.<\/strong><\/p>\n

---<\/p>\n

Fotos: Ilmavoimat.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO has concluded today the Ramstein Flag 26 exercise, important maneuvers with two very different scenarios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19630,15961,11546],"tags":[7388,3546,13611,18261,27265,27255,27266,27263,11267,18266,1239,7281,11368,27254,27264,18659,11875,27258],"class_list":["post-65572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1a-plana-defense-eng","category-bloque-6-english","category-military-aviation","tag-aim-2000-iris-t","tag-ala-12","tag-finland","tag-finnish-air-force","tag-havittajalentolaivue-31-havllv-31","tag-jyvaskyla","tag-karelia","tag-karjalan-lennosto","tag-kuopio","tag-lapland","tag-mcdonnell-douglas-ef-18-hornet","tag-mcdonnell-douglas-fa-18-hornet","tag-nato","tag-ramstein-flag-26","tag-rissala","tag-rovaniemi","tag-spanish-air-force","tag-tikkakoski"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}