In late 1942, realizing that their dependence on foreign military equipment is a great weakness in wartime, the Finnish government issued a set of specifications for a domestic fighter design in an effort to address this problem. At the same time, plans were being assessed for the viability of creating a domestic licence production of the Bf 109G - a fighter already in service with the Finnish Air Force at the time.

However, due to the limited resources and production facilities available, domestic licence production wasn’t possible and an independent design was favoured instead. Thus, an order for the construction of two prototypes of the new design was ordered in April 1943. The aircraft was built around the DB605 engine, the same one used on the Bf 109G, which resulted in the entire nose section of the machine being copied over from the German counterpart while the rest of the plane was of entirely unique design and even addressed some problems faced by the Messerschmitt, such as the troublesome landing gear.

However, with the worsening war situation and eventual ceasefire, development of the VL Pyörremyrsky (“whirlwind” in Finnish) slowed down. The sole completed prototype undertook its maiden flight in November 1945 and was test flown for roughly 30 hours before being retired in 1947. Interestingly, the prototype of the Pyörremyrsky survives to this day and is on display at the Aviation Museum of Central Finland in Tikkakoski.