Two B-52 Stratofortress Bombers Take Part In Arctic Defender 24 In Alaska | Aviation

The B-52 bomber crews treated the deployment to Alaska as an extension of the Agile Warbird, an ACE (Agile Combat Employment) Minot AFB conducts routinely.

Two B-52 Stratofortresses from Minot Air Force Base, in North Dakota, recently took part in the Arctic Defender 24 exercise at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska on Jul. 25, 2024, marking a “significant milestone in military cooperation and readiness,” a statement said.

This was a “rare deployment to Alaska’s airspace,” for Minot AFB’s BUFFs, the public release states.

AD 24 is a German Air Force-led “field training exercise in which fighter pilots from multiple nations practice air war operations in Alaska. This time, roughly 500 personnel from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy and Spain took part in the drills at JBER and Eielson AFB at Alaska that began on Jul. 8, 2024.

AD is a part of several exercises under the Pacific Skies 24 that comprises several drills in the Indo-Pacific theater.

“The Arctic Defender 2024 exercise is the first of five individual exercises during our Pacific Skies deployment together with our European partners from Spain and France,” said Chief of…