The Allied Airpower Podcast

Space is woven into the way NATO operates: the navigation that guides Allied forces, the communications that connect them, and the missile warning that helps commanders understand a developing threat. Much of that support happens beyond our view. Its effects reach across the Alliance.In this episode of The Allied Airpower Podcast, we feature the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies’ interview with U.S. Space Force Colonel Jonathan Whitaker, chief of staff of NATO’s Space Theatre Component, co-located with Allied Air Command at Ramstein, Germany. Speaking during his visit to the Marshall Center, Colonel Whitaker explores how space is changing military operations, why commanders increasingly need space expertise, and how nations with different capabilities can contribute to a shared mission.He describes recognising space as a front in its own right, where access can be contested and capabilities can provide an operational advantage. He discusses emerging satellite architectures intended to strengthen missile warning and tactical communications, connecting developments in orbit to the practical needs of forces below. Those possibilities give commanders a reason to bring space specialists into their planning and exercises.Listen to the full conversation for Colonel Whitaker’s perspective on NATO’s growing space mission, the value of multinational cooperation, and the opportunities ahead. Recorded Monday, 28 September 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

When the Alpha Scramble order came, Lt Luis had a job to do. The adrenaline could wait.In this episode of The Allied Airpower Podcast, Jose “Houdini” Davis speaks with Lt Luis about his first operational interception, the preparation behind it, and the people who make NATO’s Baltic Air Defence mission possible.An Alpha Scramble is a real-world activation of NATO’s alert forces. For Spanish Lt Luis, it meant getting airborne to intercept, identify, and escort a Russian aircraft flying in international airspace. Procedures practiced repeatedly in training now guided an operational mission. His attention stayed on the tasks ahead; only after returning could he reflect on reaching a goal he had imagined since childhood.Much of the conversation turns to the work behind that response. Maintenance, weapons, operations, communications, and support personnel keep the aircraft ready, while Allied hosts in the Baltics help sustain the deployment. Lt Luis describes the people supporting him as his “angels.” His first interception was an achievement shared by the whole Allied detachment.The Spanish Ambar Tactical Air Detachment is currently on NATO’s Eastern Flank conducting the Air Defense mission, alongside the Turkish Air Force and their Baltic hosts. Across NATO’s Eastern Flank, Italian Eurofighters are deployed to Lithuania; Turkish F-16s to Estonia; and Spanish fighters to Romania and Estonia, as part of NATO’s robust Air Defence posture, protecting every inch of NATO Airspace.That reliance on others also shapes what NATO means to him. Through multinational exercises, Allied pilots learn how one another’s Air Forces work, approach decisions, and prepare for missions. They build relationships alongside their operational skills.As Lt Luis explains, one of NATO’s most valuable contributions is building trust before it is needed. That trust, developed through training and cooperation, supports the collective responsibility of defending NATO skies.Recorded Monday, 28 September 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

A passenger aircraft loses radio contact with air traffic controllers. Elsewhere, a hostile missile launches towards Allied territory. These situations demand different responses, but both underscore why NATO’s Air Defence posture must be able to detect, assess, and respond to threats together.As a defensive Alliance, NATO brings together radars, fighter jets, ground-based air and missile defence systems, and Allied warships through its Integrated Air and Missile Defence — or IAMD. Working across national borders, this network helps protect Allied territory and populations in peacetime, crisis, and conflict.When a civilian aircraft stops communicating, ground-based and airborne radars can track its movements while fighter jets scramble to investigate. Once alongside, pilots can visually identify the aircraft, assess the situation, and, if necessary, guide it to safety.An incoming missile requires a different response. Sensors on land, at sea, in the air, or in space can detect the threat, while NATO command posts assess its trajectory and determine an appropriate interception option. Complementary defence systems provide multiple ways to engage different threats, with ground-based systems, warships, and fighter aircraft each contributing to the wider defence.The strength of this approach lies in integration: connecting detection, decision-making, and interception so that individual capabilities work as part of a coordinated whole.But the threats continue to evolve.Drones range from large military aircraft to small commercial platforms capable of causing damage and disruption, particularly when deployed in groups. Hypersonic weapons travelling at more than five times the speed of sound, with the ability to manoeuvre during flight, present further tracking and interception challenges. NATO’s new Air Defence framework addresses these modern challenges: From Air Policing to Air Defence, NATO is prepared and postured to tackle these challenges as Allies are developing capabilities to address these threats while adapting the defences already in place. For more than six decades, NATO’s Air Defence has helped safeguard Allied skies. Its purpose remains constant: maintaining vigilance, responding to threats, and protecting the people and territory of the Alliance: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

Eject! Eject! Eject! In this episode of The Allied Airpower Podcast, Jose ‘Houdini’ Davis sits down with Danish Lieutenant Colonel Martin ‘AMI’ Friis for a conversation about life in the cockpit and what it takes to become a NATO fighter pilot.AMI recalls a 1996 departure on a routine training flight: Sitting behind a student pilot in an F-16, he received a warning from the control tower: their engine was on fire. Looking over his shoulder, he saw orange surrounding the aircraft. Within seconds, he ordered both pilots to eject. Both survived; AMI was flying again the following week.That experience gives weight to his explanation of fighter flying. Pilots must stay ahead of the aircraft, managing communications, scanning their surroundings, and making tactical decisions. Training makes flying second nature. With a career spanning around four decades, including seventeen years flying the F-16, AMI has served as a squadron commander, an instructor at NATO’s Tactical Leadership Programme, and Denmark’s chief of aviation safety. Today, in Allied Air Command’s A3 Operations Support Branch, he helps turn NATO plans into major exercises, including Ramstein Flag: bringing cockpit experience to the preparation of Allied forces.The conversation also explores the future of air warfare. Drawing on Ukraine, AMI discusses identifying airborne threats and selecting the right capabilities to defeat them. And while modern weapons favour engagements beyond visual range, he explains why dogfighting remains a skill pilots must retain.For AMI, shared training builds the trust that allows Allied aviators to fly and fight together. His childhood memory of the fortified border between East and West Germany brings that mission back to its human purpose: defending “our family, our kids, our neighbors and friends.”Recorded Tuesday, 19 May 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

These five stories show how NATO is strengthening Air & Space power through faster integration, persistent readiness and closer cooperation between Allied forces.In Iceland, Belgian F-16s took over NATO’s Air Defence mission at Keflavik, supporting Arctic Sentry and the Alliance’s broader move toward a more unified Integrated Air and Missile Defence posture. The deployment reflects a shift away from traditional Air Policing alone toward a wider approach designed to address a broader range of threats.That same emphasis on interoperability was visible in Estonia, where Spanish EF-18M fighters, Turkish F-16s and Estonian ground crews trained together at Ämari. The activity focused on practical coordination, from refuelling and emergency procedures to familiarisation flights, helping deployed forces integrate quickly with host-nation and Allied personnel.In Romania, Spain’s Paznic Detachment completed 30 days of continuous Quick Reaction Alert duty, carrying out 15 Alpha Scrambles. One of those alerts led to the interception and neutralisation of a drone that had entered Romanian airspace. Alongside these operational missions, the detachment continued multinational training, Agile Combat Employment activity and air-to-air refuelling, reinforcing its ability to respond rapidly along NATO’s eastern flank.Further north, representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden met at Combined Air Operations Centre Bodø to advance the Nordic Airpower Concept. With Finland and Sweden now part of NATO, the five Nordic countries are working more closely to align their Air Forces, improve regional cooperation and strengthen NATO’s northern posture.The space domain was also part of this wider picture. From Andøya Spaceport in Norway, Isar Aerospace successfully placed satellites into orbit, adding to Europe’s commercial launch capability. While the mission was not a NATO operation, it highlighted the importance of resilient civilian and commercial space infrastructure to the Alliance. NATO increasingly depends on reliable access to space-based services for communications, navigation, surveillance and situational awareness.Taken together, these updates point to a more connected NATO Air and Space posture. Whether through fighter deployments, Quick Reaction Alert, Nordic coordination or commercial access to orbit, the focus is on ensuring Allied forces and supporting systems can operate together, respond quickly and remain resilient across the Euro-Atlantic area. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

In this episode of The Allied Airpower Podcast, Jose “Houdini” Davis takes listeners inside Ramstein Flag, one of NATO Allied Air Command’s most important large-scale air exercises.Ramstein Flag is not just about aircraft, bases, or hardware. It is about NATO practicing how to fight as one air component in an Article 5 scenario — across nations, across geography, and under pressure.The episode explains how Ramstein Flag builds on the Flag-series tradition of realistic high-end combat training, while giving it a NATO collective defence focus. The episode traces the exercise from its first edition in Greece in 2024, through the 2025 edition in the Netherlands, and into Ramstein Flag 2026.This year’s exercise marks a major step forward, bringing together 18 Allied nations, more than 200 aircraft, and over 20 operating locations across Europe. Live-flying activity in NATO’s northern and southern Joint Operations Areas is supported by synthetic training, testing whether the Alliance can coordinate Airpower across a broad theatre.The episode also makes clear that Ramstein Flag 2026 is not only about Agile Combat Employment. ACE is part of the picture, but the broader focus includes Integrated Air and Missile Defence, Counter Anti-Access/Area Denial, and seamless data and information sharing among Allies.Above all, Ramstein Flag is about cohesion. Aircraft matter, but so do maintainers, tankers, command links, airspace procedures, sensor feeds, and host-nation support. Together, these pieces form Allied Airpower, which allows NATO to generate, sustain, and synchronize combat power.Recorded Wednesday, 5 June 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

In this special documentary episode of The Allied Airpower Podcast, Jose “Houdini” Davis takes listeners inside NATO Airpower through a documentary produced by NATO’s talented multimedia team based in Brussels.Filmed across the Alliance and partially during Ramstein Flag 25, the episode breaks down one of NATO’s most complex missions: how Allied Air Forces would secure the skies in crisis or conflict. The documentary follows the key pieces of that mission across Europe: NATO AWACS at Geilenkirchen, tanker operations at Eindhoven, fighter aircraft in the Netherlands, and Wild Weasel F-16 crews at Spangdahlem Air Base.The episode explains that air superiority is not just about fighter jets. It requires seeing the battlespace, suppressing hostile air defences, coordinating aircraft from multiple nations, keeping those aircraft fuelled, and adapting to new threats such as drones and one-way attack systems.Major themes are cohesion and interoperability. Inside NATO’s E-3A AWACS, multinational crews work side by side, using shared standards, training, and trust to build a common picture of the airspace. That same teamwork carries through the fighter, tanker, and air defence missions that make Allied airpower possible.The documentary also highlights the danger and importance of air superiority and the SEAD mission — pilots trained to go in first, draw out enemy air defence radars, and suppress the systems that threaten Allied aircraft. From there, the episode moves through fighter integration, air-to-air refuelling, and the growing challenge of defending against drones at scale.This episode is ultimately about more than aircraft. It is about the people, planning, training, and trust behind Allied air defence — the system that allows NATO to secure the skies 24/7, 365 days a year. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

Across these seven updates, NATO’s air and maritime activity in May 2026 points to a clear operational theme: the Alliance is strengthening its ability to operate as an integrated, distributed, and resilient force across multiple regions at once. From the Mediterranean to the Baltic, from Sweden and Finland to Norway and Greece, the focus is not only on presence, but on readiness, interoperability, Agile Combat Employment, ISR, air defence, and multi-domain integration.That theme was visible in Neptune Strike 2026, led by Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO across the Western and Central Mediterranean Sea. The activity brought together carrier strike groups, amphibious strike groups, land-based forces, air assets, and maritime forces to demonstrate NATO’s ability to project deterrence across the Alliance’s southern and south-eastern flanks. AIRCOM contributed through integrated air operations involving Royal Air Force Typhoon Eurofighters deployed to Romania and Romanian F-16s. Their work alongside forces from Albania, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Montenegro, Portugal, and Türkiye showed how routine assurance missions such as Eastern Sentry can connect directly to wider NATO readiness, reinforcing the idea that air policing, maritime strike, and multi-domain activity are increasingly part of one defensive framework.The same message carried into Lithuania, where around 100 French Air and Space Force aviators deployed to Šiauliai Air Base for NATO’s Baltic Air Policing 71 mission. Flying four Rafales, the French detachment took over from Spain and joined Romanian and Portuguese F-16 detachments in safeguarding the Baltic states’ airspace. The mission combined operational readiness with Allied training, including air defence drills between French Rafales and Romanian F-16s over the Baltic Sea. The central point was interoperability: not only having compatible equipment, but understanding how other Allied crews think, communicate, maneuver, and respond under pressure.Sweden’s AURORA 26 expanded that focus from air policing into national defence, reinforcement, and distributed operations. As Sweden’s first Aurora exercise as a NATO Ally, it brought about 18,000 participants from 13 countries together across Sweden, the Baltic Sea, and Gotland. Swedish JAS 39 Gripens, Dutch AH-64 Apache helicopters, air defence assets, airlift platforms, and air-ground integration all supported the wider joint scenario. A key airpower contribution came through Agile Combat Employment (ACE), with Swedish and Finnish personnel conducting aircraft cross-servicing on JAS 39 Gripens and F/A-18 Hornets at Kalmar civilian airport in Sweden. The exercise also included aeromedical evacuation training with Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, and U.S. teams, as well as counter-UAS training informed by Ukrainian drone experience. Together, these elements showed how NATO’s newer members and long-standing Allies are building practical readiness for dispersed, contested, and multi-domain operations.In Greece, NATO Tiger Meet 2026 focused on the human and tactical side of Allied air integration. Hosted by 335 Squadron of the Hellenic Air Force at Araxos Air Base, Greece, the exercise brought together aircrew, maintainers, and support personnel from Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Switzerland. Aircraft included F-16 Fighting Falcons, Eurofighters, Gripens, Tornados, Hornets, Venom helicopters, and HH.101 helicopters. The exercise blended tradition with operational relevance, giving participating units a demanding multinational environment in which to refine tactics, build trust, and adapt to threats such as drones, missiles, and contested airspace. Its importance lies in the relationships it builds: Allied personnel who train together in peacetime are better prepared to operate together in crisis.Finland’s Imminent Field 26 showed Agile Combat Employment (ACE) in especially concrete terms. Conducted from May 18 to 22 at the Jokioinen landing site on a closed stretch of Highway 2, the exercise trained Finnish F/A-18 Hornets and other aircraft to operate away from their home bases. For the first time, Italy brought F-35B Lightning II fighters to the exercise, using their short take-off and vertical landing capabilities to rehearse operations from austere and decentralized locations. The Finnish-Italian activity demonstrated how NATO air forces are preparing to disperse aircraft, personnel, and support infrastructure to complicate targeting, reduce vulnerability, and keep generating combat power if main bases are threatened.Norway then hosted a major ISR milestone with the first NISRF RQ-4D Phoenix operations from Norwegian territory. On May 21, a NATO RQ-4D Phoenix remotely piloted aircraft arrived at Ørland, marking the first time the system had operated from Norway and only the third time it had operated outside Italian Air Force Base Sigonella. The deployment was tied to Agile Combat Employment and demonstrated NISRF’s ability to deliver ISR effects from dispersed locations in support of NATO operations. For an Alliance increasingly focused on wide-area awareness, rapid decision-making, and distributed operations, the ability to move high-end ISR platforms beyond their usual operating base is a significant step.Finally, the May 25 update on Eastern Sentry brought many of these themes together over the Baltic region. On May 21, Allied Airpower conducted a high-end training event focused on Multi-Domain Integration and Counter Anti-Access/Area Denial capabilities (C-A2AD). Led by NATO CAOC Bodø in Norway as the key command-and-control node, the activity included Romanian F-16s, French Rafales and Mirage 2000D aircraft, French A330 MRTT tankers, and a NATO RQ-4D Global Hawk from NISRF. The training emphasized tactical command and control, rapid information sharing, and Find, Fix, Track, and Target (F2T2) processes. It also highlighted NATO’s shift from air policing toward a more flexible air defence posture along the eastern flank.Taken together, these stories show NATO Airpower operating across several layers at once. In the Mediterranean, Neptune Strike demonstrated maritime-air integration and Alliance-wide deterrence. In Lithuania, French Rafales reinforced the Baltic Air Policing mission while deepening tactical cooperation with Romania and Portugal. In Sweden and Finland, AURORA 26 and Imminent Field 26 tested dispersed operations, cross-servicing, airlift, counter-UAS lessons, and ACE in NATO’s northern Joint Operations Area (JOA). In Greece, NATO Tiger Meet strengthened the trust and habits that make multinational air operations work. In Norway, NISRF proved that NATO-owned ISR assets can operate more flexibly from dispersed locations. And under Eastern Sentry, Allied air forces practiced the kind of high-end, multi-domain air defence activity that connects all of these efforts into a wider deterrence posture. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

In this episode of The Allied Airpower Podcast, Jose “Houdini” Davis sits down with Lieutenant General Juan Pablo Sánchez de Lara, Commander of NATO’s Combined Air Operations Centre-Torrejón, during an in-person visit to Torrejón Air Base in Spain.CAOC Torrejón is one of NATO Allied Air Command’s key operational command and control nodes, helping task, coordinate, and execute Allied air missions across peacetime, crisis, and conflict. For General Sánchez de Lara, that mission is deeply personal. A Spanish fighter pilot with more than 3,500 flying hours, his career has taken him from the F-5 and Mirage F-1, to NATO operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, staff work at SHAPE, command of the Spanish Air Force Academy, the Canary Islands Air Command, and now command of one of NATO’s most important air operations centres.The conversation traces the evolution of NATO Airpower from Cold War-era air policing to today’s broader air defence challenge. General Sánchez de Lara explains that NATO must now be ready for a wider spectrum of threats — from traditional military aircraft to UAVs and one-way attack drones — while integrating capabilities across nations, domains, and command structures.That makes Eastern Sentry especially relevant. The episode frames NATO’s enhanced Vigilance Activity, Eastern Sentry, as part of a wider shift in posture and mindset: deterrence today depends on speed, integration, trust, and the ability to move from peacetime to crisis or conflict when required.A major theme throughout the discussion is integration. For General Sánchez de Lara, the first word in Integrated Air and Missile Defence is the most important one. Integration is not only about technology; it is about trained people, resilient systems, shared doctrine, national trust, and the ability to make timely decisions when time matters most.The episode wraps up with a more personal and human look at the General behind the command. From fighters to football, the conversation closes with an authentic exchange about Spain, family, what is ‘real’ football, and the friendly rivalries that make Allied relationships real. It is a reminder that NATO is built not only on capabilities and command structures, but also on trust, humor, and the relationships that make multinational service work.Recorded Tuesday, 21 April 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com

Across these five updates, Allied Air Command’s spring 2026 message is clear: NATO is moving from a primarily reactive air policing posture toward a more integrated, distributed, and deliberately prepared air defence model. The emphasis is not on one isolated activity, but on how command leadership, multinational planning, training infrastructure, experimentation, and large-scale exercises all connect into a single defensive posture across the Euro-Atlantic area.That strategic direction was most explicit at the first NATO Air Chiefs’ Symposium of 2026, hosted by Allied Air Command in Ramstein. Built around the theme “Operationalizing the Shift to Air Defence,” the symposium brought together Air Chiefs and senior representatives from 27 NATO nations and 5 partner nations to align national contributions, refine strategy, and discuss how air and space power must evolve for a more contested environment. The discussion centered on command and control, Integrated Air and Missile Defence, the reinforcement of the eastern flank through Eastern Sentry, and the role of Agile Combat Employment in resilience and sustainment. The core takeaway was that NATO’s air enterprise is not standing still; it is adapting its posture, its command arrangements, and its force employment model to meet a higher-threat battlespace.That shift from strategy to execution was visible in the first Flexible Deterrent Options led by CAOC Bodø under Eastern Sentry activities. Working with CAOC Uedem, the Norwegian-based command helped direct three consecutive operations across the Alliance’s northern and Baltic regions, including a major mission in Finnish airspace focused on degrading anti-access and area-denial threats and securing air superiority. French, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, Estonian, Romanian, Czech, and NATO assets all featured across the different iterations, alongside tankers, command-and-reporting centres, airborne early warning, and surface-based air defence. What stands out here is not just the number of nations involved, but the type of integration being exercised: multinational, multi-domain operations designed to prove that Allied forces can scale quickly, share the burden, and function as a unified defensive system under pressure.The same logic runs through the Romania counter-drone event conducted in support of Eastern Sentry. Hosted at the Capu Midia Training Range in Romania during Exercise Eastern Phoenix 26, the activity tested how layered counter-uncrewed aerial system defences can be built from a mix of sensors, command-and-control networks, electronic warfare tools, and kinetic and non-kinetic effectors. Romania hosted the event in cooperation with NATO Allied Command Transformation. Ukrainian expertise also helped participants measure performance against current battlefield realities rather than idealized scenarios. This matters because low-cost drones and one-way attack systems are no longer peripheral threats; they are central to the modern air defence problem. The event showed NATO trying to shorten the path from technical demonstration to operational usefulness, while connecting experimentation directly to the wider air and missile defence architecture on the eastern flank.At the institutional level, the 100th Initial Functional Joint Force Air Component Training course at Poggio Renatico shows the longer-term foundation beneath these operational developments. Hosted by the Deployable Air Command and Control Centre in Italy, the course marked more than a symbolic milestone. It reflects over 3,000 NATO officers and non-commissioned officers trained at a single location to operate inside a Joint Force Air Component structure. With participants from 15 nations and representation from Combined Air Operations Centres and national force elements, the course illustrates how NATO’s command-and-control culture is built: common language, common procedures, and a common operational mindset. That kind of institutional preparation is essential if multinational air operations are expected to function seamlessly in crisis or conflict.Ramstein Flag 2026 then ties these threads together at scale. Scheduled for June 8 to June 19 and led independently by NATO Allied Air Command for the first time, the exercise stretches from Norway to Spain and combines live-fly activity with synthetic training across NATO’s northern and southern Joint Operations Areas. Its priorities: Counter Anti-Access/Area Denial, Integrated Air and Missile Defence, Agile Combat Employment, and improved information sharing. These priorities mirror the themes seen across the other updates. Hosted primarily by Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Spain, and involving 19 nations, more than 150 aircraft, and roughly 150 sorties per day, Ramstein Flag is designed to test NATO’s ability to coordinate distributed air operations in realistic, high-end scenarios. It is not just an exercise for pilots; it is a rehearsal for how the Alliance would synchronize command and control, integrate across domains, and operate under contested conditions.Taken together, these stories show NATO’s Air & Space power working on several levels at once. Senior leaders are aligning strategy around a more robust air defence posture. Operational headquarters are testing how that posture works in practice across the eastern flank. Experimentation events are accelerating responses to emerging threats such as drones. Training institutions are producing the personnel needed to run multinational air operations. And major exercises are connecting all of that into a broader rehearsal of deterrence and collective defence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natoaircom.substack.com