Teknos involved in preserving the history of the Finnish Air Force
The protective coating on Finland's best-known airplane, Hanssin-Jukka, was restored using custom camouflage paints from Teknos. The inauguration of the memorial airplane exhibition, held at the beginning of May 2017, also featured a Saab J35 Draken, DK-247 and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 bis, MG-124 airplanes restored with special protective coatings from Teknos.
The airplane originally named De Haan – the Rooster – was manufactured at the Douglas plant in California in 1935. For its first two years, the DC-2 De Haan was used by the Royal Dutch Airline, KLM, for civilian flights.
The DC-2 (Douglas Commercial 2) revolutionized civil aviation, and a total of 156 such airplanes were manufactured. Now there are only eight DC-2 airplanes left. The DC-2 evolved into the famous DC-3, more than 14,000 of which were manufactured. Some DC-3s are still in use.
War years
In January 1940, De Haan was sold to Sweden, where the airplane was armed and then donated to the Finnish Air Force. The airplane was equipped with two machine guns for self-defense and bombing equipment, and given its energetic name, Hanssin-Jukka. The name is a reference to the Puukkojunkkari gangs, who frequently fought with knives in the late 19th century. However, the airplane saw little action in the Winter War.
In spring 1940, during the period of peace between the Winter War and the Continuation War, Hanssin-Jukka was used for aerial photography and transportation missions. During the Continuation War from 1941 to 1944, Hanssin-Jukka served as a transportation airplane, delivering cargo such as fuel for tanks and evacuating wounded soldiers as it returned from its missions. Hanssin-Jukka was badly damaged while flying crews to Germany to get military aircraft to Finland, but it was successfully restored to an airworthy condition.
An original idea saved the airplane from the scrapyard
The war left its mark on Hanssin-Jukka's camouflage paint. After the war, the camouflage paint was removed and the airplane was altered so that the majority of its surface was polished aluminum. Hanssin-Jukka's final flight in the mid-1950s was a dramatic one.
To all intents and purposes, the airplane had already been decommissioned, but it was taken into service for an urgent patient flight when the wife of a fighter pilot suffered critical respiratory paralysis. Thanks to the flight, the patient's life was saved and Hanssin-Jukka's 20 years of service were rounded off with a successful rescue mission.
Thanks to an initiative by Sergeant Major Osmo Rantala, Hanssin-Jukka was saved from the scrapyard and eventually ended up as an airplane cafe in Hämeenlinna in 1959.
Approximately 20 years of service as a cafe have turned Hanssin-Jukka into a landmark for the city of Hämeenlinna and Finland's best-known airplane.
Stringent technical requirements for protective coatings
When the cafe operating in Hanssin-Jukka was closed down, the Association of Flight Regiment 3 in Karelia Air Command once again saved it from being scrapped or sold to foreign collectors. In November 1981, Hanssin-Jukka was moved to Luonetjärvi, where the airplane was left to wait almost three decades for restoration to begin.
The Air Force Academy Guild took up the challenge of restoring Hanssin-Jukka and transforming it into a museum airplane. The demanding restoration project was completed between 2009 and 2011. The protective coating on Finland's best-known airplane, Hanssin-Jukka, was restored using protective coatings that were manufactured by Teknos and customized specifically for the Finnish Air Force.
"Teknos has a long history of working with the Finnish Air Force, in particular with Patria in Kuorevesi. The paints used for the Air Force's fighter aircraft come with extremely strict technical requirements", says Kari Sandberg, Director of Metal Paints and Coatings at Teknos.
"I would like to thank Teknos Group for their great support for our project. And the end result when fighters are treated with Teknos' special protective coatings and the top expertise at Patria Aviation's paint shop is superb", says Commander, GS (ret.) Kimmo Salomaa, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hanssin-Jukka Heritage Association. Members of the public can see Hanssin-Jukka at the Tuulonen shopping center in Tuulos, Finland.
A Saab J35 Draken, DK-247 museum aircraft restored using Teknos' special protective coatings.
The inauguration of the memorial airplane display and the opening of the summer season at Tuulonen, held at the beginning of May 2017, also featured a Saab J35 Draken, DK-247 and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 bis, MG-124 airplanes restored with special protective coatings from Teknos.
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 bis, MG-124 museum aircraft restored using Teknos' special protective coatings.
For further information about the exhibition opening hours and guided presentations, visit
www.hanssinjukka.fi
