Kuopio

Kuopio is a city and a municipality located in the region of Northern Savonia, Finland. A population of 110,999 makes it the eighth biggest city in the country. The city has a total area of 2,317.24 square kilometres (894.69 sq mi), of which 719.85 km² (277.94 sq mi) is water and half forest. The population density is only 69/km² (180/sq mi), but the city's urban areas are populated very densely (urban area: 1 617.6 /km²), nationally second only to capital Helsinki (urban area: 1,690.0/km²). The population of the entire Kuopio region is 119,472.

The town of Nilsiä joined Kuopio at the beginning of the year 2013 and Kuopio’s population surpassed the 100,000 mark.

Name

There are several explanations behind the name Kuopio. The first is that in the 16th century, a certain influential person named Kauhanen in Tavinsalmi changed his name to Skopa and the people's pronunciation was Coopia and finally Cuopio. The second explanation is that it comes from the verb kuopia, meaning "paw", as when a horse paws the ground with its hoof. A third theory is that it came from a certain Karelian man's name Prokopij, from Ruokolahti in the Middle Ages. This is the most probable explanation, supported by the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland.

Finland

Finland (ⁱ/ˈfɪnlənd/; Finnish: Suomi [suomi]; Swedish: Finland [ˈfɪnland]), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, a peninsula with Gulf of Finland to the south and Gulf of Bothnia to the west. It has land borders with Sweden and Norway to the north and Russia to the east. Finland is part of the geographic region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia and parts of Russia.

Finland's population is 5.5 million (2014), staying roughly on the same level with only about 9% increase in 24 years since the last economic depression in 1990. The majority live in the southern regions. The single largest group of foreigners living in Finland are Russians and Estonians, 36% of all of the foreigners (2014). In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 317 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which produces a third of the country's GDP. Other large cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio.

Air force

An air force, also known in some countries as an air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military organization that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army, navy, or a marine corps. Typically, air forces are responsible for gaining control of the air, carrying out strategic and tactical bombing missions, and providing support to land and naval forces.

The term "air force" may also refer to a tactical air force or numbered air force, which is an operational formation either within a national air force or comprising several air components from allied nations. Air forces typically consist of a combination of fighters, bombers, helicopters, transport planes and other aircraft.

Many air forces are also responsible for operations of the military space, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and communications equipment. Some air forces may command and control other air defence assets such as anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, or anti-ballistic missile warning networks and defensive systems. Some nations, principally Russia, the former Soviet Union and countries who modelled their militaries along Soviet lines, have an air defence force which is organizationally separate from their air force.

Finnish Air Force

The Finnish Air Force (FAF or FiAF) (Finnish: Ilmavoimat, Swedish: Flygvapnet), is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. Its peacetime tasks are airspace surveillance, identification flights, and production of readiness formations for wartime conditions. As a separate branch of the military, the Finnish Air Force was founded on 4 May 1928, having existed officially since 6 March 1918 as the Army Corps of Aviation.

History

The first steps in the history of Finnish aviation were taken with Russian aircraft. The Russian military had a number of early designs stationed in the country, which until the Russian Revolution of 1917 had been part of the Russian Empire. Soon after the declaration of independence the Finnish Civil War erupted, in which the Soviets/Russians sided with the Reds – the leftist rebels. Finland's White Guard, the Whites, managed to seize a few aircraft from the Russians, but were forced to rely on foreign pilots and aircraft. Sweden refused to send men and material, but individual Swedish citizens came to the aid of the Whites. The editor of the Swedish daily magazine Aftonbladet, Waldemar Langlet, bought a N.A.B. Albatros aircraft from the Nordiska Aviatik A.B. factory with funds gathered by the Finlands vänner ("Friends of Finland") organization. This aircraft, the first to arrive from Sweden, was flown via Haparanda on 25 February 1918 by Swedish pilots John-Allan Hygerth (who on March 10 became the first commander of the Finnish Air Force) and Per Svanbäck. The aircraft made a stop at Kokkola and had to make a forced landing in Jakobstad when its engine broke down. It was later given the Finnish Air Force designation F.2 ("F" coming from the Swedish word "Flygmaskin", meaning "aircraft").