Finnish F18 taking off from Highway Vid

[Gman]

http://theaviationist.com/2014/02/08/fin-f18-highway-ops/

It's pretty impressive, a lot of cold war reading material talked about the Soviets anti-runway and offensive counter air ops taking out European runways in a first strike to give them air parity or even superiority over the vastly higher tech Nato forces.  Of course, the same material always talked about stovl aircraft like the Harrier and other light fighters like the F5 and such using roadways, but this is the first video I've seen of a mid weight full size fighter doing this, although I'm certain it's been done before.  The landing approaches looked good too, I'm sure if they had wanted to land they easily could have, making this a pretty decent capability in time of war, dispersing fighters from targeted or hit bases to good roads.  That road isn't long at all compared to some, and only single lane.  Impressive as well that the Hornets weren't clean, they both had 2 Aim 120's and 2 Aim9's as well as a fuel tank loaded, a typical A2A combat loadout for the F18.  Very cool.

[Bizman]

Actually the road isn't a standard single lane one, there's an overtaking lane to the other direction. Nevertheless it's narrow compared to the emergency landing strips here and there on our highways. There's a civil airport near that place, the landing lights starting their crossing path right at the roadside.

[Ripsnort]

Cool.
Now land in the same place, I'll be impressed.

[GScholz]

Cool! 

[artik]

What is actually more challenging is landing...

I actually wonder how useful such "airfield" would be. AFAIK since 1967's 6 day war the runway repair techniques improved significantly, such that even after significant damage runways becomes useful in very short time.

Another big problem of such runways is all the supporting facilities you need: ammo, fuel, control, aircraft parking, etc.

[Nefarious]

Cant do that in West Virginia, they'd hit a deer.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Cool.
Now land in the same place, I'll be impressed.

They have mobile cable arrestors for this purpose and this is done during exersize.

[Bizman]

Cant do that in West Virginia, they'd hit a deer.

Luckily we don't have much deer here, only Eurasian elks aka moose. 

[Heater]

They do this all over Europe, as part of exercises etc...

[MiloMorai]

SAAB 37 can do both,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoQtnugT6A4&list=PLC3D9E9FD7DDF7A34&index=16