Scandinavian Airlines - McDonnell Douglas DC-9-41

LN-RLP
Froste Viking

DC-9-41 LN897 was delivered new to SAS on 7 Feb 1979. Nicknamed Froste Viking, it was the 3rd of 4 DC-9s delivered in an experimental alternate bare-metal scheme to test fuel savings compared to the standard scheme.

Froste Viking retained this nonstandard all-metal scheme until July 1982, when SAS pulled it from service temporarily to use it as a life-size canvas to visualize two new livery design options. Following this, during the livery evaluation process, the aircraft was repainted into another nonstandard version of the previous paintscheme, with the grey/metal belly instead painted solid white. It would of course later be repainted permanently into the new scheme sometime between 1984-1986, and remained with SAS for its entire flying career, being re-registered as SE-DOO in 1999 and eventually retired in 2001 after 22 years of service and 47,928 flight hours. It was stored at Roswell thereafter as N78XS, and scrapped in July 2002.

Interestingly enough, in some period pictures of Froste Viking, you can actually see the new scheme's fuselage striping barely visible under the front fuselage, having been painted over until the new livery went public.