Suomeksi
Back to the list of trips page


General information

Northern Finland tour is a story of a flying holiday that took 4 days and included 19 airfields. This page has pictures and stories of the events that took place during the journey.

The most northern airfield visited was Jäkäläpää. As this airfield is located N68deg, it is located more than 600Nm (700mi, 1100km) north of Juneau, the capital of Alaska and less than 160Nm (180mi, 300km) south of Barrow, the most northern city in United States.

Photos and sometimes films were taken from airfields. You can go and see the those airfield specific photos and films by clicking the name of the airfield anywhere in the text. Use your web browsers back to previous page button to get back to this page.

Airfields visited during the journey in order of visit: Hailuoto (EFHL), Oulu (EFOU), Ahmosuo (EFAH), Kemi-Tornio (EFKE), Ranua (EFRU), Rovaniemi (EFRO), Aavahelukka (EFAA), Kittilä (EFKT), Enontekiö (EFET), Pokka (EFPA), Martiniiskonpalo, Jäkäläpää, Ivalo (EFIV), Vuotso, Sodankylä (EFSO), Kemijärvi (EFKM), Kuusamo (EFKS), Suomussalmi (EFSU) and Kajaani (EFKI).
Only a touch and go was perform at the Martiniiskonpalo and Vuotso airfields. In all the other airfields the surroundings where explored in more detail by foot.

Start of this story contains general information of this journey. After the start, each day has its own chapter and in the end there are statistics gathered from the journey.

Time and weather

At the time of the journey, in southern Finland the day temperatures where above 86 deg Fahrenheit (30 deg Celsius) and in northern Finland during the night the temperature was below 32 deg Fahrenheit (0 deg Celsius). The weather conditions where caused by warm weather front that was pushing north from south and could weather front that was pushing south from north. As these two weather fronts collided at the central Finland area, there where continuous rains and the cloud base was at low altitude.

Route

Route was flown so that flight towards north was performed on the western side of the Finland and flight towards south was done on the eastern side of the Finland. Planned route was designed to maximize the number of different airfields that could be visited during the journey.

First day

The following airfields where visited during the first day of the journey: Hailuoto (EFHL), Oulu (EFOU), Ahmosuo (EFAH), Kemi-Tornio (EFKE), Ranua (EFRU), Rovaniemi (EFRO) and Aavahelukka (EFAA).
During the departure from Halli airport the weather was excellent. Temperature was above 86 deg Fahrenheit (30 deg Celsius), clouds where at above 3000ft and there was tail wind towards the north. Slowly while flying towards the north the weather started to change to a state where there where local showers all around and lightning was constantly visible. As cloud bases remained high and showers where only local, it was possible to avoid the rain and the plane remained almost dry all the way to first stop, Hailuoto.
However, just before landing to Hailuoto, the rain managed to get the plane wet and little bit of water went to the static pressure measurement hole(s). The event could easily be noticed by looking at the instruments. Altimeter and variometer where very stiff and speedometer was constantly going up and down with each turbulent hit. At the Hailuoto airfield's own page, there is a landing video where also the altitude and speedometer are visible. It is easy to see by looking at the speedometer how it constantly goes up and down even the turbulence is not that strong at all.
At the pictures below the approach and landing is performed to Hailuoto. Left top picture was taken when ATIS information was recorded from the near by Oulu airport. Right top picture was taken when last verification of the destination is made from the map... not that there would have been any other possible landing spots. Left below picture is taken just before the Hailuoto airfield is flown around. At this point the wind is very favorable, that can easily been seen by comparing the readings from speedometer and GPS. Speedometer shows 139Nm/h (257km/h, 160mph) and GPS shows 169Nm/h (313km/h, 195mph). Right below picture was taken just before wheels touch the ground.



From Hailuoto the journey continued to Oulu airport and from there to Ahmosuo airfield. If I haven't figured it out during the last decade or so, then at least now I know how wet it can be to get in and out of the low wing plane with bubble canopy when it is raining. Ahmosuo airfield has plenty of aircraft hangars, but none of them has eaves. So as I was waiting for rains to pass by, I had to squeeze my self against the wall, pull my belly in and try to be an invisible target for rain.

As the rains had passed by, journey continued towards Kemi-Torni airport. During this flight the weather turned perfect. Coastline was followed instead of flying above the see, as water with wet clothing was already enough close. Below the direct route and flight route can be seen.

There the view to see (picture below) was calmingly beautiful.

From Kemi-Tornio airport the journey continued to Ranua airfield. At Ranua airfield, the parking area was located so far away from the runway that I guess that the taxiway was longer than the shortest airfield in Finland. However, that long taxiway was now build to be a runway, it was probably build to get across the swamp that is located between parking area and runway.

From Ranua airfield the journey continued via Rovaniemi airport to last destination of the day, Aavahelukka airfield. At the Rovaniemi airport the fuel tanks where refilled and from that part the continuity of the journey was guaranteed. Before Aavahelukka airfield there was still one thunder area to pass. That is something what air traffic controllers though as well as they ordered to stay at the area control's frequency. However, a pass through point was found, "just as I ordered", almost exactly from direct route, the pass of the thunder area did not matter much. Even the plane stayed almost completely dry.

Picture that is below was taken right after the thunder area was passed. If you look at the picture carefully, you may notice an area right behind the plane that has blue elements in color. That is the point where the pass through was done. It is also possible to see from picture that back of the canopy has remained completely dry.


About 10 minutes before estimated arrival time to Aavahelukka airfield, I felt heavy right wing. After wondering about it for a while, I realized to make a visual inspection and the reason for heavy right wing was found... It was the money coffer at the end of the wing tip.


As the view around me at the time was spectacular, I took some more photos. It is possible to see from picture below right, how the largest fell (Yllästunturi) at the area had been captured by clouds to their tender care.


Landing to Aavahelukka airfield finalized the flights of the first day. Aavahelukka airfield is a great location to spend a night, as it has washing, sleeping and dining facilities, not to forget the sauna and connection to internet. Here, middle of nowhere an access to internet allows an (too) easy way to check the forthcoming weather. This place can therefore be called as a well-equipped airfield or an excellent summer house. As I guess that not everyone have a asphalt runway at their summer houses.
My luck turned even better as there where two kind airman a like spending their flying holiday at the airfield. Their kindly invited me to sauna and so I got to spend the evening with them. So rest of the day at Aavahelukka airfield went really nicely.

Second day

As the sun had risen at Aavahelukka airfield, (well at this latitude sun doesn't really go down at all during the mid summer), the weather was again excellent. The weather forecast to planned route was also excellent. So it seemed that the forthcoming flying day would be easier, at least based on weather, than the previous day had been.

Below there are pictures taken from Aavahelukka airfield. At the picture that is on top left, a fence can be seen, that circulates the hole airfield. The fence, that is even visually nice, has not been build, like in other airports, in a fear of the terrorists, as it is build to keep the reindeers away from the runway. If you carefully look at the picture, you may notice, that even the time when picture was taken, there are few reindeers seeking for a way to get through the fence. So even the reindeers know that the grass in greener on the other side of the fence... or actually reindeers probably think that lichen is more silver on the side. At the top right picture the lodging, dining and flight planning building is at the front and washing and sauna facilities are backside on the right. Picture below is taken from taxiway towards north.




The following airfields/airports where visited during the journey's second day: Kittilä (EFKT), Enontekiö (EFET), Pokka (EFPA), Martiniiskonpalo and Jäkäläpää.

The planned number of airfields/airports to visit during the second day was smaller. The goal was to arrive to Jäkäläpää airfield as early as possible, to have enough time there to get a round places, do hiking etc. Moreover, the day's last two airfields, Martiniiskonpalo and Jäkäläpää are both airfields with very short runways on top of the fell, so to arrive in there while being tired was not something I wanted to do.

The journey from Aavahelukka airfield to Kittilä airport went easily, mostly by watching beautiful surroundings. Below left picture has a fell (Aakenustunturi) made out of quartzite stone. That looked from the air like a place where I want to go hiking one day. Below right the village of Äkäslompolo is visible as is the skiing resort located at the Yllästunturi fell.



From the Kittilä airport the journey continued towards the Enontekiö airport. Yet another nice looking fell (Pallastunturi) was seen on this route. The pictures below are from this fell. As it can be seen, very small amount of snow, white dots, still exists here even it is middle of the July.




At the Enontekiö airport, there was an own parking area for reindeers (if I was able to understand the local traffic signs correctly). Never the less, the reindeers seemed to be happy to their parking area.



Next destination was Pokka airfield, from where are the pictures below taken. I could have stayed in Pokka airfield for a longer time, e.g. to do some food in grill hut that is visible at the picture, but I was too eager to get going towards next airfields, Martiniiskonpalo and Jäkäläpää.

One incident did happen over here. While I was checking the Pokka airfield from the air, I noticed at the middle of the runway, side wise and length wise, a relatively large stone. Luckily the runway is so long over there that one large stone does not stop you from landing there. When I walked to remove the stone, I was surprised to realize that it was not a stone after all. It was just a warm greeting from a local bear to all the arriving visitors (picture right below).




Flight from Pokka airfield via Martiniiskonpalo airfield to Jäkäläpää airfield was the most exiting and most waited for. A long lasting dream to go and visit the Jäkäläpää airfield was about to come true.

First there where two things, that I was supposed learn while visiting the Martiniiskonpalo airfield. One was that I had to check the condition of a real wild area airfield and find a right spot to use for landing and the other one was to measure the winds, that are quit erratic at the top of the fells, correctly. From the picture at the below left, that has the GPS track of the fight path, it can be seen how I circulated the airfield several times to be sure how the winds are and to where to make a touch and go landing. Each time I circulated the runways I was comparing the speedometer readings and the speed shown by GPS to get the idea of wind speeds and directions on different parts of the fell's top. At the same time I tried to figure out where is the best place to make the touch and go landing. The Martiniiskonpalo airfield's own page has a picture of this airfield from the air, as it can be seen from that picture, the location of each runway is not that clear as someone might think.

In the end the runway 11/29 seemed to be in best shape and as the wind's direction also supported the use of that runway it was an easy choice. From the air, it looked like there was about 660 ft (200m) long line of good surface on the selected surface. Line was not exactly parallel to runway but it did not matter. As the wind was relatively stable and strong, the approach speed could be kept in normal figures.

Picture at the below right was taken during the Martiniiskonpalo airfield approach when the tail cam recording was started. The film of the approach and touch and go landing can be seen from Martiniiskonpalo airfield page. During the final approach and touch and go landing the video has also the speedometer and altimeter visible.



After the touch and go landing to Martiniiskonpalo airfield, there was a short, only few miles long, flight to Jäkäläpää airfield. It took only a short time to select the runway in Jäkäläpää airfield, as winds where suitable to runway that looked to be in best condition. The film of the approach and touch and go landing can be seen from Jäkäläpää airfield page. During the final approach and landing the video has also the speedometer and altimeter visible.

Pictures below have the approach and landing to the Jäkäläpää airfield.




After walking a bit at the airfield area, a spot was found from where the mobile network was found... flight plan was finalized. Back up plan was to take off and fly to Ivalo airport. All this was necessary as I promised to my wife not to go anyway where I would not be backed by air traffic management...
Rest of the day was then spend by hiking and otherwise familiarizing myself with the airfield. Area is very harsh, but beautiful and calming. At the pictures below:




Cultural center of Jäkäläpää deserves to have its own story. First the building:




As you can see from picture below, the visitor gets information in many languages... Probably the thing that happened to the gatekeeper has fired a need to improved local guides. The sign has the word water written in four different languages (Water, Vesi, Wasser and Vatten) and more over using the chemical formula (H2O). Picture on the right shows what it looks like where to the sign points to. I followed the instructions and actually found some water from short distance away.



From the center of culture I found a library and another room with heater.
Library had books, surprising isn't it, and also instructions on how to behave: "Silence in library". All the time I spend in Jäkäläpää, I never saw another human and as I do not consider myself as a very loud person, when being alone, the instructions where fairly easy to follow.
There was a picture of this person, after who the house was named, on the wall of library. I am sure the text attached to the picture gives us all something: "My life has been rich, but I do not measure the richness with the gold I have found, richness is the life I have lived".




The room with heater contains among other things a local area map, from what my finger points to the Martiniiskonpalo airfield. From Martiniiskonpalo airfield to north it is possible to seen also the sign of Jäkäläpää airfield. Yellow boxes at the map are the different locations where their dig the gold.



The room with heater had also a guide book how to dig gold. So if you want to change the way you live, it is easier when you start by studying how you live after the change.
At the guest book there where surprisingly many user marks. During the summer time, there was at least one marking for each week. Even airplanes had visited this remote airfield. One during previous year and another year before that. So I guess it is safe to say that landing circuit should be joined with extreme caution keeping all the other possible traffic in mind.



The heater room had a none electric type of heater.



Reindeers and different kinds of birds where visiting airfield regularly. The following videos have a short clip of visiting reindeers and a bird that was my companion for quite some time. The bird flew small hops in front of me and probably enjoyed, like me, our mutual time.
Reindeers 15th of July 2010 20:00 at Jäkäläpää 38sec, 3,6MB wmv file
Bird 15th of July 2010 20:00 at Jäkäläpää 6sec, 0,6MB wmv file





Third day

On the morning at the Jäkäläpää the sun was shining from a blue sky. Air was still chilly after a freezing night.

Dragonfly had decided to spend the night with another flying machine. What an earth is the dragonfly doing at the peak of a fell when temperature goes below freezing? Probably it had a broken GPS and map was forgotten to home or it was simply a very talk active dragonfly who wanted to change flying stories with one of its kind.



Airfields to visit during third day where: Ivalo (EFIV), Vuotso, Sodankylä (EFSO), Kemijärvi (EFKM), Kuusamo (EFKS) ja Suomussalmi (EFSU).
Up in north the weather was excellent, so journey went forward with great easiness. First stop was at Ivalo, where tanks where filled with fuel. After Ivalo it was time to make a touch and go landing to Vuotso. There is a video of the touch and go landing to Vuotso at airfield's own page.
Pictures below show the scenery around Vuotso airfield. Picture below left is taken towards artificial lake Loka from the west and the one on the right side is taken towards west south of the Vuotso airfield.



Next destination was Sodankylä airfield. At Sodankylä I met a friendly local aviator, who allowed me to use their clubhouse and the computer in there to check the weather in front. Weather in front was as expected... plenty of rain and thunder areas.
Even so, flight to next airfield Kemijärvi should be easy, though the overcast cloud base height was going downwards. After that it looked like that if I would keep a two hour break in Kemijärvi, there should be a passage available to the next airfield, Kuusamo. So, the plan was ready to be executed.
Below left, you can see the flown route when approaching Kuusamo. As you might guess, there were small raining areas everywhere and therefore it was necessary to constantly change heading to keep the visibility reasonable.
During a brief stop at Kuusamo, the state of weather was estimated visually and thought to be good enough for a next flight to Suomussalmi airfield. As can be seen from a picture below it was again necessary constantly to change heading to avoid raining areas.



At Suomussalmi the cloud base was so low that it was not possible to continue VFR flight. So it was time keep a break.
Wind at Suomussalmi was blowing from the northeast, even the weather maps clearly showed that wind should be blowing from the southwest.

After wondering the situation for a while, I thought that I found out the reason... the wind sock was in a knot. There was no way that wind could be blowing to the right direction, if wind sock can't show the direction where to blow. I did a good work of the day when I climb up to the mast and untied the knot. Picture below has the evidence of an event... wind sock before and after my brewery act.

To my great surprise, direction of a wind did not change. I had given a great hope that the good work I had carried would have changed the direction of the wind. My hope relied on fact that weather in southwest was much better than weather in northeast. After a careful analysis my conclusion was that wind sock had been in a knot for such a long time that it would take some time before it could provide any instructions what so ever to wind.



As the weather refused to get better during that evening, I had time to look around. When I was digging all the old trash, I found airfield's old diary from seventies. I had great time when reading it. There where marking for example from Italians, who had visited the airfield by their own plane on a way to see the local water-power station. Things got even funnier as somebody had found that same diary one day before me and had added his comments to it (and thrown it afterwards back to where all the other old stuff was). There was a gap of more that thirty yeas between the marking that was done one day before mine and the previous marking. That diary really wanted to come back into use.
Weather did no get better, so it was time to pitch a tent.

Fourth day

The weather at Suomussalmi was still bad on next morning, but it was getting slowly better. After waiting for a couple of hours, it was possible to fly again in VFR and journey towards Kajaani started. At Kajaani the plane got its daily meal, so it was possible to start the final flight towards home base. At Kajaani the cloud base was still low, but weather map showed that after less than 20 minutes of flight the weather would be once again excellent.
Picture below was taken when overcast finally broke a part and it was again possible to clime up higher for more comfortable cruising. Picture is taken towards east on the west side of the city of Iisalmi.


Statistics

Summary:
During this journey, I had a conversion with other human being in five different airfields. Of those five, I talked more that ten sentences in two airfields. On top of those, I saw one or more humans from distance at four different airfields. So I can recommend this kind of journey to even those, who's social behavior is somewhat limited.

Table below has all the flights and their statistics.



It is possible to calculate the energy efficiency in airplanes by getting a relative figure between the amount of used fuel and achieved speed. When flying, the resistance from the air towards the airplane triples when speed doubles. So if you fly the same route by achieving an average speed of 68Nm/h (78mph, 125km/h) and you use less than 54 MPG (US) (4,4l/100km) of AVGAS fuel, the plane's, that you have, aerodynamics, engine and propeller have together better efficiency than what these figures tell about this journey. To achieve the mentioned average speed, your cruising speed must probably be about 78-84Nm/h (90-96mph, 145-155km/h).

Table below has the figures of total fuel consumption in different units.



During the journey I faced tail wind, side wind, head wind and calm. Because of that the ground speed varied between the flights a lot, even all the flights where performed with same power setting. What must also be understood is that with short flight relatively long time is spend only doing the landing circuit, that again is something where low speeds are used. Table below has the average and maximum speeds from different flights.

Accomplishments

Picture below left has all the luggage that I had packed to storage compartment. So the accomplishment was a show of packing skills. Another accomplishment was the conquest of Jäkäläpää. So as a mountaineer, I had to take a photo of me on top of a fell I conquest.



Souviners...