Foreword
Jukolan Pilotit ry is an ordinary Finnish flying club whose members come from all walks of life. Naturally, the club includes several professional pilots and people who have served as pilots or in other roles in the Finnish Air Force — but at heart it remains very much a club of amateur aviators.
Registered as an association, Jukolan Pilotit has operated since 1980. Over the years, the club has also ranked among Finland’s leading flying clubs in terms of the number of pilots trained and flight hours logged.
Aviation in the Kanta-Häme region before the club
The Nurmijärvi Aviation Club (Nurmijärven Ilmailukerho) was founded back in 1970, and a theory course for flying began shortly after. The club soon bought a nearly new Piper Cherokee, OH-PCO, which had only flown a handful of demonstration flights. It was flown until the energy crisis of autumn 1974.
Later, a group of members jointly acquired a 1946 Cessna 140, OH-CSY, which was restored during the winter of 1975–76 in Hyvinkää. It flew around 800 hours in Finnish airspace — its only navigation instrument was a simple ball compass.
A dedicated airfield was also planned for Nurmijärvi, but the project never went ahead.
Activity in Hyvinkää
Eino Pönkänen, later also a member of Jukolan Pilotit, ran a flying school called Lentokoulu EP at Hyvinkää airfield for about two years in 1968–69. The school’s office occupied one corner of the main building, the airfield’s former terminal. Eikka flew his first training aircraft from southern France to Finland, navigating with nothing more than an ordinary road map.
In 1983, Jukolan Pilotit ry bought Pönkänen’s barrack building — part of the former passenger terminal of Helsinki’s main airport at what was then Seutula. This building is known today as the club’s clubhouse, and a piece of Finnish aviation history still lives on in the hands of Jukolan Pilotit.
After Pönkänen’s flying school closed, motor-powered flight training in Hyvinkää continued through the motor flying section of the Hyvinkää Aviation Club and the group that formed from it, Hyvinkään Moottorilentäjät.
Founding the club and the first aircraft
As Jukolan Pilotit ry began to take shape, many members of Hyvinkään Moottorilentäjät joined. Recreational flying had recently been banned for a period, with only commercial flying permitted, and enthusiasm for flying had waned for many — there was a clear need for new, more affordable club-based flying.
The club’s first aircraft, a Cessna 170 B registered OH-CHD, was bought by a group of five for about 55,000 Finnish marks in late 1979 and collected from Saarijärvi in early January 1980. The idea of founding a flying club emerged that same year; the registration notice was filed in early 1980, and the club was entered into the Finnish association register in 1981. It took the name Jukolan Pilotit, after its Nurmijärvi origins.
Buying and leasing aircraft and equipment
Flying activity took off quickly — in the very first year the aircraft logged over 300 hours, and at Midsummer 1981 the club flew its first public pleasure flights. OH-CHD’s service ended in October 1981 in an accident during fertilizer-spreading flights near Nurmes.
It was replaced by a Cessna 172 F, OH-CKT, bought from Sweden, which served the club until 1988 with nearly 11,000 flight hours logged. The fleet grew through several acquisitions during the 1980s:
- Cessna F172M, OH-CGX — acquired in 1984 to replace the destroyed OH-CCN, and still owned by the club and in active use for training.
- Cessna F150 Aerobat, OH-CBZ — purchased in 1987 specifically for aerobatic flying.
- Cessna 172 P, OH-CAM and the seven-seat Piper Cherokee PA32-300 (“Sixi”), OH-PCV — acquired in 1988.
- Saab Safir 91D, OH-SFJ — bought at an Air Force auction as early as 1982 (formerly military tail number SF-24), registered in 1983, and flown regularly throughout the club’s history.
Jukolan Lento Oy, a company founded by club members, also operates a twin-engine Cessna 310, OH-CHH, on which many members have completed their multi-engine rating; it is also used for charter flights.
A hangar for the fleet
The need for a hangar became clear as the fleet grew rapidly in the mid-1980s. Materials for the hangar were bought in 1985, and a building permit was granted the same year. The arched hangar, clad in fabric over a glulam frame, can hold around ten aircraft depending on arrangement — it is also fitted with electricity for lighting and for warming aircraft engines in winter.
The airfield
Construction of Hyvinkää airfield began in 1940. During the Continuation War it served as an air-defence field for Helsinki — at its peak it had around 30 buildings and four crossing runways. After the war, Hyvinkää served as Finland’s principal airport for as long as the Allied Control Commission remained in the country.
The airfield has always been owned by the Ministry of Defence, and the Finnish Defence Forces still hold occasional exercises there.
Public-benefit flying: fire-watch and search flights
Fire-watch flights began in 1981 in connection with the national gliding championships held at Räyskälä, when Jukolan Pilotit agreed to cover the area’s watch duties. Regular fire-watch flying became established in 1986. Members taking part in fire-watch, search, and wildlife-count flights must complete observer and pilot training, and the club logs roughly 30–50 hours of this activity per year.
Watch and rescue flights are carried out at the request of the authorities — they have been used, among other things, to search for missing people and to check on reported accident sites.
Competitions and links with other aviation organisations
Since 1983, Jukolan Pilotit ry and Finnairin Lentokerho ry have competed annually in a spot-landing competition, whose team category Jukolan Pilotit has won almost every year.
Club members have taken part every year in flying rallies to the other Nordic countries — Denmark, Sweden and Norway among them — and Jukolan Pilotit ry has organised these rallies since 1989. The club has also maintained long-standing ties with Baltic aviators, and on 25 May 1991 Hyvinkää hosted a major aviation event attended by around twenty pilots and skydivers from what was then the Soviet Union.
Flying and training
Shortly after its founding, the club launched its training programme, which propelled it for many years to the top of Finland’s flying clubs by number of pilots trained. Jukolan Pilotit was awarded the Kotkanpoika trophy in 1984 and won the Kar-Air travelling trophy in consecutive years, 1986 and 1987.
Theory instruction for the flying licence began at the Jukola adult education centre in the 1983–84 academic year, and the club has largely staffed these courses with instructors from its own membership. In 1989 the club adopted Cessna’s integrated training system, the CPC (Cessna Pilot Center).
Club membership passed 200 as early as 1988, and the majority of members are still from Hyvinkää. The progress made during the 1980s, the awards received, and the international contacts that opened up lifted the club into the ranks of Finland’s most significant flying clubs — and that is a foundation well worth building on today.
This history is based on an account written by Jouko Arpalo in 1991, published in that year’s special Aviation Day issue. We welcome information and additions to help bring the story up to date for later decades.