RNoAF F-35 Maintenance Squadron

F-35 Fly Vedlikeholdsskvadron (F-35 Aircraft Maintenance Squadron), 132 Air Wing, Royal Norwegian Air Force — Ørland Air Station · Allied · 2024

Norway's F-35 Fly Vedlikeholdsskvadron keeps the Royal Norwegian Air Force's Lightning II fleet flying from Ørland Air Station, home of 132 Air Wing, and sustains the year-round QRA detachment that stands NATO's northern alert at Evenes. When U.S. Marine F-35Bs of VMFA-542 flew into Evenes in February 2024 for Exercise Nordic Response 24 — the squadron's first overseas deployment as an F-35B unit — Norwegian maintainers were on the ramp alongside them in the Arctic dark. This patch was gifted during that exercise to the Marines of MAG-14 and VMFA-542, one maintenance crew's handshake to another. The design says it plainly: a Lightning II riding an arc of electricity down into a crossed axe and torque wrench, the wrench of the wrench-turner married to the axe of the North.