VL Myrsky
The VL Myrsky ("Storm") was a Finnish fighter designed and built by the State Aircraft Factory, Valtion lentokonetehdas, during the Second World War. Finland ordered the design in 1939 so that its air force would not depend on foreign suppliers for a modern fighter. Built largely of wood to conserve scarce metal, the prototype flew in December 1941, but aeroelastic flutter destroyed all three prototypes and killed two test pilots. The production Myrsky II reached reconnaissance squadrons only in August 1944; fifty-one aircraft were built in all. The type flew against the Soviet Union in the Continuation War and against Germany in the Lapland War, but the substitute glues in its wooden structure failed in Finnish weather, and it was withdrawn in 1947. No Myrsky survived intact, and since 2013 volunteers and two Finnish museums have been restoring one airframe, MY-14, for the Finnish Air Force Museum.
Why It Mattered
The VL Myrsky — the name means "Storm" — was Finland's attempt to field a modern fighter of its own design, after pre-war experience showed that a small nation could struggle to buy first-line fighters abroad without paying a significant political cost. The Finnish Air Force asked the State Aircraft Factory for preliminary proposals early in 1939, and the Ministry of Defence ordered the design that June. Vintage Aviation News describes the production Myrsky II as the only military aircraft fully designed and serially produced in Finland. Only fifty-one were built, and the first of them reached their squadrons in August 1944. Its aerodynamics were carried into later Finnish designs, among them the Pyörremyrsky fighter and the Valmet Vihuri trainer.
Design Notes
Because duraluminium was difficult to obtain, the wings were built of plywood, and the fuselage was a metal structure skinned with fabric and plywood. The planned Bristol Taurus III engine was unavailable in wartime, so a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp was chosen instead; production aircraft used the less powerful SC3-G version, built by SFA in Sweden, and Finland bought its engines from German war-booty stocks. Its armament was four 12.7 mm VKT LKk/42 machine guns, and it could also carry two 100 kg bombs. The first prototype flew on 23 December 1941; it worked, but it was too heavy. High-speed flight testing then exposed aeroelastic flutter, a phenomenon poorly understood at the time, and all three prototypes were destroyed in test flights: two test pilots were killed and a third was seriously injured. Identifying and correcting the flutter problem took almost a year. In service the type's wide undercarriage was a virtue on the ground, giving decent ground handling.
Operational History
Series production began in the autumn of 1942, before German deliveries of Bf 109s had begun in 1943, and the production version was called the Myrsky II. Production amounted to fifty-one aircraft in all: one prototype, three pre-production Myrsky Is and forty-seven production Myrsky IIs. A Myrsky III was ordered in the spring of 1943, but none were built. Reconnaissance Squadron 12 received the first Myrskys in August 1944, and thirty aircraft had been delivered to Reconnaissance Squadrons 12 and 16 before the Continuation War ended. Fifteen Myrskys flew sixty-eight missions during that war: on one they met Soviet Yak-7s and the fight ended without loss on either side, on two others they damaged two Soviet fighters, and six aircraft took part in a bombing mission on 3 September 1944. In the Lapland War, six Myrskys flew thirteen reconnaissance missions in November 1944. There the wooden construction suffered: the wartime Lukko glue, made from substitute materials, failed in rain, frost and humidity, and glued seams came apart, sometimes with disastrous results. Accidents cost the type ten aircraft between 1943 and 1947, and four pilots were killed. Use of the type ended in May 1947, though the last Myrsky flight came in February 1948.
Afterlife
No Myrsky survived intact: the aircraft that remained deteriorated until air force personnel scrapped them, and by the early 1960s no trace of the type's service was left. Three fuselages and several parts did survive, and parts held at the Finnish Air Force Museum were later identified as belonging to MY-5, MY-9 and MY-14. MY-14 had flown about 115 hours with Reconnaissance Squadron 12 after its delivery in August 1944, and it was chosen as the restoration subject; the project was launched in the autumn of 2013. The restoration is a joint effort of the Finnish Air Force Museum, the Finnish Aviation Museum and the Aviation Museum Society, Finland, and the Tuesday Club volunteers hand-built most of the aircraft's aerodynamic surfaces. So little original material survived that the project's early estimate put 95 per cent of the construction — later revised to 85 per cent — in the restorers' hands. In May 2026 the rebuilt wing was joined to the fuselage, and for the first time in over sixty years the aircraft rested on its own gear. Delivery to the Finnish Air Force Museum is expected in the autumn of 2026.