A bizarre video has recently emerged online.
The footage below shows an F-5A Freedom Fighter of the 336 Sqn of the RNoAF (Royal Norwegian Air Force) towing a person on a sort-of sledge on a frozen apron. According to the user who uploaded the clip to Youtube, “when the technical status of our F-5B twoseaters went low, creative training methods were required. A funny scene from a 336 sqn video showing a F-5 fighter jet towing an instructor giving taxi instructions from a sledge.”
Obviously, the description is hilarious: it looks like the personnel of the 336 Sqn based at Rygge, 60 kilometers outside Oslo, in eastern Norway, wanted to exploit the frozen surface of the apron for a joke and hooked a cable and an improvised sledge to the rear end of the F-5 for some fast turns during the taxi operations of the Tiger. At a certain point, the little sled capsizes and the military, holding the cable tight with his hands, is towed with his belly on the ground.
Although the engines were running at idle power for the taxi, at that distance, the person on the sledge, while risking to be crashed on the nearby hangar or against one of the fire extinguishers on the apron, was probably getting some of the exhaust gas and heat…
The video is quite old (from an era when such jokes were much more frequent than nowadays, when some stunts would probably be punished), dating back to a period between 1987 and 2000 when the 336 Skvadron was disbanded (on Jun. 30, 2000).
The RNoAF started receiving the first Northrop F-5s in February 1966, when 9 Northrop F-5A(G) and 2 Northrop F-5B(G) arrived from Edwards AFB to Sola AB via Kirtland, Langley-Loring, Goose Bay, Sondrestfjorden, Keflavik, Prestwick. According to the Northrop F-5 Enthusiast Page, deliveries were completed by December 1970 and included 78 Northrop F-5(G), 23 of those funded through the US Military Aid Program; 16 RF-5A(G); 14 F-5B(G), 8 funded through MAP. The aircraft were upgraded beginning in 1984, through a Service Life Extension Programme (SLEP) started in 1984 and ended in 1986 that involved 17 Northrop F-5A and 13 F-5B(G) aircraft. A further upgrade included the ALE-38 chaff/flare dispenses (these were later replaced by ALE-40). As part of this upgrade, that was completed in November 1987, the aircraft received also light gray colours. Considered that the aircraft in the video show both the chaff and flares dispensers as well as the light grey color scheme, the clip must have been filmed after 1987.
H/T Alex Snow for posting the video
