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Business Insider got access to a NATO AWACS flight for an eight-hour surveillance mission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
The mission provided aerial support for a NATO patrol and security operation in the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
This is what it’s like inside the E-3A Sentry, keeping an eye on Russian activity at 30,000 feet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
ABOARD A NATO AWACS PLANE \u2014 As the aircraft soared over Eastern Europe, tiny triangles and U-shapes blinked across a glowing console. Each shape marked a presence \u2014 a ship, a fighter jet, or something else moving near the Baltic Sea and the militarized Russian exclave of Kaliningrad<\/a>.<\/p>\n The NATO E-3A Sentry<\/a>, a flying radar and airborne command post, was tracking them all, with its rotating radar dome scanning hundreds of miles in every direction.<\/p>\n “We’re the eyes in the sky,” said Maj. Ben, a US Air Force officer and the mission’s fighter allocator. “Being up at 30,000 feet, we can look down and we see pretty much everything to the ground.”<\/p>\n Business Insider was given access to a NATO<\/a> AWACS flight this week for an eight-hour surveillance mission above Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n Departing from Geilenkirchen Air Base in western Germany \u2014 home to 14 aging E-3s \u2014 at 8 am, the plane flew east to support Baltic Sentry<\/a> operations, an ongoing alliance effort focused on protecting undersea infrastructure after recent sabotage<\/a> incidents in the Baltic Sea<\/a>.<\/p>\n