Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
JYVÄSKYLÄ, Finland — The Finnish Air Force has disciplined a group of reserve officer cadets after a routine aerobatic training exercise on April 13 produced, visible on the Flightradar tracking service, at least four clearly identifiable penises in the sky above central Finland. Amateurs.
Nothing to see here… (flightradar24)
The cadets were enrolled in the Pilot Reserve Officer Course at the Air Force Academy in Tikkakoski, where applicants undergo 347 days of conscript service, must demonstrate flawless color vision, and weigh between 103 and 213 pounds. None of the published selection criteria address the matter now under review.
Four Grob G 115 E primary trainers lifted off from Tikkakoski at around 7:30 a.m. and proceeded to their assigned turn-practice box. What happened next depends on whose statement you read. According to Flightradar, what happened next was dicks. According to the Finnish Air Force, the cadets “performed the exercises given in the flight mission assignment” and “did not deviate from their route,” a defense that works only if you stop reading before the part where a radar operator in Helsinki opened a browser tab and said the Finnish word for “oh no.”
“The Air Force requires soldiers to follow good manners and rules of conduct, and if these are deviated from, it will be responded to in an appropriate manner,” a spokesperson told Yle, in a sentence apparently drafted by someone who has never met a 20-year-old man. The spokesperson added that no other aircraft were endangered during the exercise, which is believed to be the lowest bar any military has ever cleared intentionally.
Observers noted the compositions were, technically speaking, good. The aspect ratios were consistent. The aircraft remained in formation. The commenter on ResetEra who wrote that “the girth-to-ball ratio seems a bit off” was in the minority. Instructors at Fighter Squadron 41, which oversees primary flight training with the Grob fleet, declined to comment on whether “coordinated turn within assigned training area” technically encompasses the maneuver in question. It does. That is the whole problem.
The Finnish Air Force has launched an investigation into the incident. Officials would not specify what the cadets face, citing privacy and an apparent unwillingness to have the word “penis” appear in any further official communications. The investigation is expected to conclude that four young men with flight plans and too much time between waypoints did exactly what four young men with flight plans and too much time between waypoints have been doing since the invention of the flight plan, only this time Flightradar was watching.
The Academy has not commented on whether future curriculum will include a unit on shapes that are not this shape. Like boobies.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
