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VL Humu

1944 WORLD WAR 2 X-PLANE

VL Humu Story

Finland's wartime aviation industry achieved some notable achievements during World War II (1939-1945), when its opponent became the Soviet Union. Valtion Lentokonetehdas (VL), its main state-owned aircraft factory, began manufacturing for the Finnish Air Force in 1928.

Their early product was a seaplane as the facility had no runway, but eventually the facility was upgraded to a more advanced type.

One of the "unique" archetypes that emerged during the war years - during which the Soviet invasion of Finland sparked the "Winter War" and the subsequent "Persistent War" - VL "Humu" or "Whirlwind". It is based on a fighter jet with a nose-mounted single-engine, single-seat cockpit and low-mounted monoplane wings. The landing gear is retractable and the pilot is completely enclosed in the cockpit.

Armament is concentrated on 2 x 12.7mm LKK/42 hull mounted heavy machine guns.

At its core, the Finnish Humu is nothing more than a local development of the American Brewster "F2A", which was known as "Buffalo" when it served in the UK. Like the Royal Air Force (RAF), the Finns obtained this fighter product for export and had the greatest success in fighting the Soviets.

Unlike the U.S. entry, which was built as an all-metal aircraft, wartime restrictions on materials such as metal forced the replacement of wood in the design where possible. The result is a "wooden fighter" with a steel structure.

Humu was conceived because more than 40 F2As were simply not enough to meet the needs of the Finnish Air Force. Therefore, the locals worked hard to rebuild American fighter jets through local measures.

Torsti Verkkola, Arvo Ylinen and Martti Vainio are all project leaders related to the Humu design.

This makes Finnish Jager very similar to Brewster products. It has a length of 26.3 feet, a wingspan of 35 feet and a height of 12 feet. Power comes from an air-cooled 9-cylinder radial piston engine Shvetsov M-63 with 1,000 horsepower. These engines are of Soviet origin, but are based on the American Wright R-1820 Cyclone series radial engines that power other aircraft - including the original F2A.

The M-63 is an improvement over the earlier M-62.

Performance specs for the Humu include a top speed of 267 mph and a service cap of up to 26,250 feet.

The Finnish Air Force ordered 90 Humu fighter jets. The first completed aircraft was flown on August 8, 1944, but this essentially marked the climax of the program as it was cancelled as only the only examples were available.

The plane was in the air for nearly 20 hours, but quickly proved heavy and lacked the performance needed to compete with more modern fighter jets. So Humu remains as it is and ends its days as an exhibit at the Central Finnish Aviation Museum, where it is now.