THE FIAT SQUADRON

Fiat G.50 FA-19 Sgt. P. Saarni.

Historic Squadron

Historically, Flight Squadron 26 was a fighter squadron of the Finnish Air Force, which was established on October 10, 1934. The squadron participated in air warfare during the winter, continuation and Lapland wars. The aircraft fleet consisted of the Italian Fiat G.50 fighter in the Winter and Continuation Wars, and at the end of the Continuation War and in the Lapland War, outdated Brewster fighters transferred from Flight Squadron 24.

The squadron achieved 34 aerial victories in the Winter War, losing 13 planes and 7 pilots. In the Continuation War and Lapland, the squadron achieved 111 aerial victories, losing 16 planes and 8 flying personnel shot down. More information about the historical flight squadron Lentolaivue 26 in Wikipedia.

Flight Squadron 26 Fiat G.50 in its open dugout at the Kilpasilla airfield in Eastern Karelian Isthmus in the summer of 1942. SA photo, colored by Tommi Rossi.

Virtual Squadron

Lentolaivue 26 lentue ja lentäjät.

In the current IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles sim and aerial war game the Virtual Squadron 26 now flies Messerschmitt Bf 109 G and Focke Wulf FW 190 A fighters. In the near future (approx. 2025 or 2026), with the new Karelia map, Fiat G.50 fighters are coming also to Great Battles sim. A professional Italian 3D-modeler has started to create a 3D model of it with the Finnish Air Force Museums original drawings and reference material.

Fiat G.50 fighter was already included with the Finnish insignia in the older IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 game as picture below about 14 years ago.

Finnish Fiat G.50 in the old IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 game.

It's also currently nicely modeled in the western Team Fusion's IL-2 Sturmovik Blitz and Tobruk sims, as you can see from the fairly recent image below.

Italian Fiat G.50 fighter in theTeam Fusion's IL-2 Sturmovik Blitz/Tobruk sim.