Posted on 09/22/2016 12:25:06 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Some nights, sitting at a table in a hotel restaurant 17 stories above the Bodø quay, you may see what looks like a spark rise from the Norwegian coast and fly off into the night. Another follows, then both wink out in the distance. They are F-16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) stationed here in Bodø [pronounced “BO-deh”], either on a training flight or scrambled to intercept an aerial visitor, probably a Russian one, skirting Norwegian airspace.
Though the conversation around the restaurant is mostly in Norwegian, you also hear diners chatting in English, a good deal of it concerning aviation. The room is stocked with tech reps tending the flock of F-16s stationed here, and preparing for the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning IIs that will soon begin their migration to Norway. The prospect of their arrival has already begun to transform not only this nation’s air force, but every branch of its military.
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A Royal Norwegian Air Force F-16 returns to Ørland Main Air Station in 2014. (Morten Hanche/Norwegian Armed Forces)
Read more: http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/norways-air-force-180960362/#vI037CeCyxGTzWBg.99 Save 47% when you subscribe to Air & Space magazine http://bit.ly/NaSX4X Follow us: @AirSpaceMag on Twitter
Why are they called Royal? serious question.
And these F35s better work out well or we’ll be in more trouble than the Corleone family when Marlon Brando was shot and Luca Brasi was killed.
Because the King of Norway is the formal head of the armed forces.
Thanks man. I didn’t even know Norway had a king :)
Another thing to add from things learned on FR list!
Thank God I have no shame about my lack of knowledge or my knowledge wouldn’t grow!
I spent a few NATO exercises in Norway. In Orland, Bodo, Bardufoss, and out in the country back in the 70s - 80s.
Norwegian Royal Family. King is on the right, and the man with the beard is Haakon, the Crown Price.
A worthless POS who has no power.....thank God.
The one standing next to Håkon is Marius, his bastard stepson
Do you disapprove of all blended families or just the Norwegian monarchy?
No just the Norwegian royal family. They are all useful idiots.
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