In an interview with the weekly, Second Lieutenant Jasper Vimm, a 28-year-old captain, said no aircraft takes off without a planned route; pilots keep away from the border once airborne, and as GPS signals are liable to evaporate once you near Russia, flights are planned around ground landmarks.

Estonia's Air Force (Õhuvägi) is small compared with some other countries', but has four main aircraft: two Czech-made L-39 Albatros trainers leased from an Estonian firm, one of which is currently undergoing maintenance, and two Polish PZL M28 Skytruck transport aircraft used for maritime patrol and exercises.

The L-39s date from the 1980s and 1990s, fly at subsonic speeds of about 700 km/h, carry no weapons, cannot climb vertically, and have airframes with a service life of 5,000 flight hours, of which this one has a little over half left.

The Air Force currently has between 10 and active 20 pilots, Vimm said, though changes are afoot - the Estonian National Defence College will graduate its first class of pilots next year, after which new Air Force pilots will come through every year.

With its relatively compact size, flying from one end of Estonia to the other takes 30–40 minutes in a trainer; about half that in a larger fighter at cruising speed.

There have been proposals recently for Estonia to take on light fighters, what type is not yet known, but Vimm said once in country these would perform the same roles as the full-blown fast jets, differing mainly in size and speed.

He said new aircraft would be "a source of joy" for pilots, who would be able to do more in the air and practice using aircraft weapons using their own aircraft.

As for drones, Vimm said 'these are suited to destruction and reconnaissance and are replacing some missile roles, but pilots are not going anywhere for the time being: human-piloted planes perform a wider range of tasks and someone must still sit in the cockpit to achieve this.

While the disparity of state of the art fighters costing millions going out to intercept cheap drones, Vimm said the cost of human lives lost, infrastructure destroyed, far outweighs aircraft maintenance and the cost of air time; Ukraine has even mounted machine guns on slower, old piston-driven aircraft to hunt quadcopter-type drones, he noted.

The original Maaleht interview is here.

Since the Air Force, organizationally a part of the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) currently has no fast jets, NATO allies provide that capability flying out of Ämari and from Šiauliai in Lithuania. Turkey's Air Force currently holds that role at Ämari with its F-16s.

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