NATO Concludes Three-Week Deployment of E-3A Sentry AWACS to Norway’s Rygge Air Base | Aviation

For three weeks, NATO E-3A aircraft ‘flew surveillance and  monitoring missions in an airspace north of Iceland as part of wider NATO joint vigilance operations’. Italian and French Airborne Early Warning aircraft joined the missions as national contributions providing continued surveillance support on a daily basis.

NATO’s three-week deployment of its E-3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning Control System) aircraft to Norway’s Rygge air base, in the southern part of the country, concluded last week. The E-3 aircraft are assigned to the NATO air base at Geilenkirchen, Germany, which is home to the NAEW&C (NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force’s) component.

The alliance described this deployment, which the Norwegian military first announced on Aug. 22, 2024, as an “invaluable opportunity to provide” crews with “unique opportunities to test, evaluate and validate command and control capabilities.” The press release further added “it has proven to be an excellent opportunity to refine the AWACS readiness, as part of wider NATO joint vigilance operations.”

NATO and U.S. aircraft and drones like the E-3A, RC-135 Rivet Joint, MQ-4 Global Hawk and the MQ-9…