Two of the rarest sights in modern air combat shared the same patch of Arkansas sky on 16 June 2026: an F-22 Raptor and an F-35 painted in the markings of the Finnish Air Force, flying wingtip to wingtip. One was built to own the sky; the other to see everything in it. And for once, they were on the same side of the fight.
Two F-22s from the Virginia Air National Guard had flown out to Ebbing Air National Guard Base near Fort Smith for a short, intense training window with Finnish pilots — the kind of fifth-generation-versus-fifth-generation work that almost never happens, because so few air forces own jets in this class.
QUICK FACTS
What: Joint training between U.S. F-22 Raptors and Finnish Air Force F-35s
Who: Two F-22s from the Virginia ANG 192nd Fighter Wing; Finnish Air Force F-35A pilots
Where: Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Fort Smith, Arkansas
When: 16 June 2026
Why it matters: A rare pairing of two fifth-generation fighters, and a sign of deepening NATO stealth cooperation
Why Finland trains in Arkansas
It seems an odd place to find Finnish fighter pilots — landlocked Fort Smith, thousands of miles from the Baltic. But Ebbing has quietly become one of the most international air bases in America. It was chosen as the training hub for foreign F-35 operators, and Finland, which is replacing its ageing F/A-18 Hornets with the Lightning II, sends its crews there to learn the jet.
That made the Raptors’ visit a natural fit. While the Finns build their F-35 expertise, the U.S. brought in the one Western fighter still considered the gold standard for pure air superiority — and let the two types fly against and alongside each other.
The Raptor and the Lightning are a team, not rivals
People love to argue about which jet is “better,” but that misreads how they work. The F-22 is a missile-armed predator built to dominate a dogfight and out-climb almost anything. The F-35 is a flying sensor — its real weapon is the picture it builds of the battlefield and shares with everyone around it.
Put them together and the F-35 sees the threat first and quietly passes the targeting data; the F-22 races in to make the kill. Training like this is about teaching the two aircraft — and two air forces — to share that picture seamlessly.
That is exactly the skill the U.S. and its allies are racing to perfect. A coalition where American Raptors, Finnish Lightnings, and every other allied F-35 can plug into one shared network is far more dangerous to an adversary than the sum of its parts.
A small flight with a big message
The deployment runs through the Virginia–Finland State Partnership Program, a military-to-military link that has taken on real weight since Finland joined NATO in 2023 and brought its long, sensitive border with Russia into the alliance.
Two jets crossing the Atlantic for a few days of training will not change the balance of power on its own. But the photograph — a Raptor and a Finnish Lightning in close formation over Arkansas — is its own kind of message about who flies together now.
Sources: U.S. Air National Guard / DVIDS; Army Recognition; Talk Business & Politics; defence-industry.eu.
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