Midnight Hawks
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Midnight Hawks is a Finnish
aerobatics Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in conventional passenger-carrying flights. The term is a portmanteau of "aeroplane" and "acrobatics". Aerobatics are performed in aeroplanes and gl ...
team. The team is organised by the
Finnish Air Force The Finnish Air Force (FAF or FiAF; ; ) is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. Its peacetime tasks are airspace surveillance, identification flights, and production of readiness formations for wartime conditions. The Finnish Air ...
. The aircraft used is the
BAe Hawk The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, subsonic, jet-powered advanced trainer aircraft. Its aluminum alloy fuselage is of conventional string-frame construction. It was first known as the Hawker Siddeley Hawk, and subsequently produc ...
advanced jet trainer.


History

The history of the Midnight Hawks began before World War II, when the Finnish Air Force Academy used
Gloster Gamecock The Gloster Gamecock was a biplane fighter aircraft, fighter designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Gloster Aircraft Company, Gloster. The Gamecock was a development of the earlier Gloster Grebe, Grebe Mk III, an early inte ...
s and other aircraft for display flying. The tradition of formation flying continued after the war and it became a trademark of the Finnish Air Force Training Air Wing's annual Midnight Sun Airshow. Midsummer Eve is normally the third Friday in June. Originally the show was just the Training Air Wing's Midsummer party for the families, relatives and the people of the Kauhava village where the academy was located. Over the years this event has grown to become the Midnight Sun Airshow and Festival with many foreign participants and over 20,000 spectators. Because of the midnight sun the airshow starts at around 7 p.m. and lasts until midnight when the last display is flown. Finnish Air Force Training Air Wing's flight instructors have always performed formation flying in the Midnight Sun Airshow. The formation flying had been part of the normal training syllabus and no special team names or aircraft had been used. There had been several nicknames for the teams, often based on the name of the team leader, but no official team name had been used until 1997. The flight instructors had simply showed their skills and aircraft to the spectators. The aircraft flown have been Training Air Wing's standard trainer aircraft. Between 1960 and 1980
Saab Safir The Saab 91 Safir (Swedish for sapphire) is a three (91A, B, B-2) or four (91C, D) seater, single engine trainer aircraft. The Safir was built by Saab AB in Linköping, Sweden (203 aircraft) and by '' De Schelde'' in Dordrecht, Netherlands (120 ...
and
Fouga Magister The Fouga CM.170 Magister is a 1950s French two-seat jet trainer aircraft that was developed and manufactured by French aircraft manufacturer ''Établissements Fouga & Cie''. Easily recognizable by its V-tail, almost 1,000 have been built in Fr ...
were used, and from the beginning of the 1980s
Valmet Vinka The Valmet L-70 ''Vinka'' is a Finnish-designed piston-powered military basic trainer aircraft of the 1970s. A production run of 30 aircraft were built for the Finnish Air Force in the early 1980s, and although the type was not exported, it formed ...
and BAe Hawk Mk 51. So for the last forty or so years the Finnish Air Force Training Air Wing has had two formation display teams; one flying with the basic prop trainer, and the second with the jet fighter trainer. Both teams had performed almost solely at the Midnight Sun Airshow once in a summer. During the 1990s the Finnish Air Force Training Air Wing's jet display team started to expand their appearances, performing in airshows other than just the 'Midnight Sun'. The sight of four BAe Hawks in a tight formation became familiar to thousands of airshow spectators around the country. The jet display team started to operate more and more like an official display team, even though it was still without name or official status. In 1997 this changed. In the biggest ever airshow in Finland, Oulu International Airshow, the Finnish Air Force Training Air Wing's jet display team appeared as the Midnight Hawks. Immediately the name spread around the country and the wider world - the Finnish Air Force Display Team Midnight Hawks had been born. All the members of the team are flight instructors in the Finnish Air Force Academy, and in active service. They usually hold the rank of Captain or Major.


External links


Midnight Hawks
* Polish Fanclub of Midnight Hawk

{{Modern aerobatic teams Aerobatic teams Military units and formations of the Finnish Air Force