BODØ, Norway – On Friday, 2 November Admiral James Foggo, Commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, made a visit to the exercising Air Force detachments at Bodø Air Base. His visit included a briefing by the NATO Air detachment at Bodø on progress of the exercise, talks with international detachment commanders and a showcase of the Italian detachment. His Command is the overall responsible NATO unit for Exercise Trident Juncture 18.

After a press conference in the morning and talks with the Chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Major General Tonje Skinnarland, Admiral Foggo was greeted by Colonel Eric Moses, Chief of the NATO Air detachment at Bodø. The NATO Air Detachment is responsible for planning, coordination and execution of exercise sorties from Bodø Air Base. Colonel Moses briefed Admiral Foggo on the performance of the Bodø based air detachments. "Everything has been going extremely well for us. The flying units are very motivated and have been performing very professionally” said Colonel Moses. "Our NATO Supervised Flying Training Programme managers and our Norwegian hosts have been making sure that everything and everyone was in the right place at the right time to achieve the desired training objectives” he added.

Next, Admiral Foggo met with the Commanders of the Air Force detachments form the seven different nations, based at Bodø and thanked them for their commitment to Exercise Trident Juncture. A static display of aircraft from five different nations provided the opportunity to brief the Admiral on individual characteristics and capabilities of the assets. The visit concluded with a more extensive showcase of the Italian detachment which provides the larges contribution of assets at Bodø. Next to Eurofighters, Tornados and a KC-767 tanker, the Italian Air Force also contributed a G-550 Airborne Early Warning aircraft.

As Commander of the overall responsible NATO Command for Exercise Trident Juncture, Admiral Foggo has visited several locations of the exercise. The visit to Bodø Air Base was his main visit regarding the role of NATO Air Power for the exercise.