Reinforced partnerships: 12th CAB builds adaptable teams in Finland.

KAJAANI, Finland— From above, the landing zone looked workable.

The clearing cut through Finland’s dense forests appeared wide enough for a couple CH-47 Chinook helicopters. On the map, the terrain suggested solid ground. But as the crew lowered the aircraft for a closer assessment, the landscape told a different story.

What looked stable from altitude began revealing itself as deep marshland.

For the pilots and crews of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, moments like these defined their experience during Saber Strike in Finland — a multinational exercise where unfamiliar terrain, shifting mission requirements and unpredictable weather tested not only aircraft capabilities, but the Soldiers behind them.

For nearly three weeks, Bravo Company’s Chinook crews supported operations across Finland, adapting to changing plans while gaining experience in one of Europe’s newest NATO operating environments.

Exercises like Saber Strike can take more than a year to plan, but aviation operations often unfold far differently than anticipated. Weather changes, mission priorities shift and aircraft crews must adjust quickly while continuing to accomplish the mission. Rather than disrupt training, those changes became some of the exercise’s greatest lessons.

Inside briefing rooms at Kajaani Airfield, Finland, officers, warrant officers and noncommissioned officers gathered around mission packets and terrain maps, revising routes, discussing air assault timelines and reassessing landing zones before launching into Finland’s complex operating environment.

The terrain itself presented challenges unfamiliar to many crews.

Dense forests, soft marshes, trenches and rolling terrain created deceptively difficult conditions for landing zone selection and flight planning. Areas that appeared usable through satellite imagery or map analysis sometimes proved unsuitable once crews conducted closer aerial assessments.

During the opening days of the exercise, one Bravo Company crew evaluated several potential landing zones only to discover that portions of seemingly solid terrain concealed unstable marshland beneath vegetation.

“It looked good until we got down on it,” said U.S. Army Spc. Calan Bushinger, a crew chief. “That’s where experience, crew coordination and local knowledge really mattered.”

That local knowledge came in part from Finnish liaison officers assigned to partner nations throughout the exercise.

“The liaisons are what is making this work,” stated Capt. Connor Karlson, the operations officer for 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion).

For Bravo Company, their Finnish liaison, Capt. Matti Kettunen, became an essential resource, helping crews interpret terrain features difficult to recognize through maps and imagery alone. Small indicators, such as vegetation patterns, contour changes and environmental cues, often revealed conditions invisible to unfamiliar eyes.

“He could look at a map and immediately point out things we would have missed,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tony Degel. “He showed us how deceptive the terrain can be.”

The partnership reflected a broader objective of the exercise.

Operating in Finland provided U.S. Army aviation crews an opportunity to train alongside forces from one of NATO’s newest member nations while refining the coordination and interoperability required for allied operations across Northern Europe.

The exercise also challenged crews to think beyond flying missions alone.

Working alongside multinational partners meant supporting unfamiliar equipment, different loading procedures and operational requirements that did not always align neatly with standard aircraft configurations.

To build a shared understanding of capabilities and limitations, Bravo Company conducted cold load training with partner force equipment, rehearsing how vehicles, cargo and mission-essential gear could be safely configured and transported aboard the CH-47 Chinook.

The training provided more than technical familiarization.

It created a common understanding between aviation crews and ground partners of what the aircraft could realistically support, pinpointing where limitations existed and how adjustments could be made before missions moved from planning to execution.

For Bravo Company’s flight engineers, the challenge became an opportunity for innovation.

Faced with equipment configurations different from those typically encountered, flight engineers worked closely with partner forces to evaluate loading requirements, aircraft constraints and practical solutions to maximize support without compromising safety or mission effectiveness.

Rather than relying solely on standard approaches, crews adapted.

Flight engineers explored alternative methods for securing and configuring partner equipment inside the aircraft, applying technical expertise and creative problem-solving to better support multinational operations.

“Staff Sgt. Ricardo Remon [a flight engineer] really drove a lot of that problem solving,” Degel said. “He was looking at equipment, talking through constraints and figuring out how we could best employ the aircraft to support the mission.”

The work highlighted a critical but often unseen aspect of aviation operations: Successful support depends not only on aircraft capability, but on the crews who understand how to translate that capability across different partners, equipment sets and mission demands.

For many Soldiers, those conversations became some of the exercise’s most valuable lessons in interoperability.

The exercise also delivered significant developmental opportunities within the unit itself.

Several Bravo Company pilots and crew members earned their overwater flight certifications during the movement from Germany to Finland, expanding operational qualifications critical for aviation units supporting missions across Europe’s maritime and northern environments.

For Chinook crews, overwater certification involves more than flying across coastlines. Crews train to operate with specialized survival equipment and emergency procedures designed for water survival, ditching response and recovery operations.

But the most important gains from Saber Strike extended beyond certifications and flight hours.

The exercise created opportunities for junior pilots, crew chiefs and flight engineers to operate in unfamiliar conditions, solve problems in real time and build confidence within multinational operations.

“Saber Strike was an awesome opportunity to reinforce our partnerships with our NATO partners,” said 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion) Commander, Lt. Col. Azizi Wesmiller. “If this theater asked us to go execute a mission with our NATO partners, we might not have the same processes but we have people that we can embed to overcome those challenges.”

Behind every mission launch were crews conducting risk assessments, maintainers preparing aircraft and experienced leaders mentoring younger aviators through rapidly changing conditions.

By the exercise’s final days, Finland’s terrain had not become less demanding. The weather still shifted. The maps still required second looks.

But the Soldiers reading them had changed.

They left with new qualifications, hard-earned lessons and a deeper understanding of what it takes to operate alongside allies in complex environments -- proof that the success of an aviation mission depends not only on the aircraft, but on the people who make it fly.