A factory in a sea fortress

Finland’s aircraft industry began in 1921 as the Air Force Aircraft Factory, IVL, in the old dockyard buildings of the Suomenlinna sea fortress off Helsinki, with overhaul shops on nearby Santahamina. There was no airfield: aircraft flew from the sea in summer and from the ice in winter. The first big job was the German Hansa-Brandenburg W.33 floatplane, built under licence as the IVL A.22 Hansa with a German technical director and five German craftsmen alongside a dozen Finns, an arrangement hampered by language problems. In November 1922 the first aircraft built in Finland was handed to the army, and 120 Hansas were completed by 1926, two of them for Latvia.

Licences, fiascos and committees

On 23 February 1928 the factory moved from the air force to the Ministry of Defence and became Valtion lentokonetehdas, the State Aircraft Factory, prefix VL. Designer Kurt Berger’s fighters and tourers stayed as single prototypes, partly because of a hopeless Siemens-Halske engine, but his Sääski trainer became the first Finnish-designed aircraft built in series, 38 of them at VL. The licence-built Koolhoven F.K.31 was a fiasco, grounded with its Dutch-built sisters and struck off in 1932. Three committees examined the factory in 1931–1932; the director resigned, and Berger left in 1933.

Arvo Ylinen and the move to Tampere

The new chief designer, Arvo Ylinen, fresh from studies in Berlin, began the Tuisku trainer as a spare-time project of the factory’s young designers. Its prototype broke up in a diving test in January 1934; Ylinen publicly explained the cause, flutter, two months later and the type went on to serve until 1949. Suomenlinna was strategically exposed and too small, and after a fierce contest between towns, and despite Mannerheim’s fear that an industrial city would be bombed, the factory moved in 1936 to Härmälä in Tampere, where it built Finland’s first wind tunnel in 1939. Staff grew from 665 in 1936 to 1,697 in 1941.

Wooden fighters for a country at war

War made the factory a repair and assembly shop first and a designer last. It licence-built Fokker D.XXI fighters and Bristol Blenheim bombers and serviced German Ju 88s, while dispersing work to Kokkola, Kylmäkoski, Pori, Kolho and the Karhumäki brothers’ plant at Kuorevesi. Short of metal and unable to buy fighters freely, it designed its own in wood. The Myrsky fighter flew in December 1941; all three pre-production aircraft were lost to flutter, killing two pilots, and only 51 were built. The Humu, a wooden-winged Brewster Buffalo copy, flew once in August 1944, and the Pyörremyrsky, a wooden fighter with Bf 109G engine, flew only in November 1945.

Slide rules and straddle carriers

Peace ended the business almost overnight. Hoping the Soviet Union would not count their staff against Finland’s armistice limits, the state transferred its arms factories to the trade ministry in September 1945, and on 29 September 1946 they became the civilian Valtion Metallitehtaat, later Valmet. The aircraft works made slide rules from propeller wood, then locomotives; designer Martti Vainio, who had written his doctorate on fighter turning combat, turned to designing them. Its most lasting invention was the straddle carrier for moving timber and containers, still built by Kalmar on the old Tampere factory site. Kuorevesi carried on as Valmet’s aircraft works.

Factories

• Suomenlinna works · Suomenlinna, Helsinki — New aircraft built in the fortress dockyard, 1921–1936; no airfield
• Santahamina · Helsinki — Aircraft and engine overhaul
• Härmälä works · Tampere — Main factory from 1936; Finland’s first wind tunnel 1939
• Linnavuori engine works · Tampere — Rock tunnels; assembled Myrskys from 1943
• Kuorevesi (VL2) · Kuorevesi — Former Karhumäki brothers’ plant; final assembly and test flying

People

• Asser Järvinen · first director, 1921–1932
• Kurt Berger · first designer — Designed the Sääski, Kotka and Haukka; left 1933
• Arvo Ylinen · chief designer from 1933 — Tuisku, Viima and Pyry
• Martti Vainio · designer — Led the Humu; later designed locomotives
• Torsti Verkkola · designer — Designed the Pyörremyrsky
• Edward Wegelius · designer — Worked on the Pyry and Myrsky

Records and firsts

• First aircraft built in Finland handed to the army, November 1922
• VL Sääski: first Finnish-designed aircraft built in series
• Finland’s first wind tunnel, Tampere, 1939