NATO is bolstering its eastern flank following alleged Russian incursions. CNN joined a surveillance flight

By Frederik Pleitgen, and Claudia Otto, CNN

Geilenkirchen, Germany (CNN) — After slowly taxiing towards the runway at NATO’s Geilenkirchen airbase in Germany, the pilots go full throttle and the decades-old E-3 Sentry surveillance plane screams as it gains speed and lifts off on its way to Eastern Europe.

After multiple recent incursions by drones and aircraft into NATO airspace, the alliance is beefing up its presence in Eastern Europe, to counter Russia’s threat.

NATO’s name for this mission is “Eastern Sentry,” and CNN was invited on an eight-hour surveillance flight over Eastern Europe, looking deep inside Russian and Belarusian territory to detect possible encroachment on NATO’s airspace.

The crew consisted of servicemembers from various NATO countries, including the United States, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Romania and Turkey.

“These missions, they mean a lot to us,” Lt. Col. Stephen Wahnon of the US Air Force told CNN. “When we’re patrolling these borders, they are our borders. So, it means a lot for us to be out here to defend our borders.”

The E-3 flew a pattern over Polish air space, monitoring aircraft over Russia’s exclave Kaliningrad but also over Belarus and the Baltic Sea. While there were some Russian military aircraft flying in those areas, all of them seemed to be routine flights well within Russian and Belarusian airspace.

But NATO has seen in uptick in what the alliance calls provocative actions by Russia.

On September 9, around 20 Russian drones veered from Ukrainian territory into Poland, causing jets from several NATO countries to scramble and shoot them down. Russia claims it did not deliberately fly its drones into Poland, suggesting Ukrainian electronic jamming may have caused them to veer off course.

Days later, on September 13, Russian drones violated Romanian airspace, prompting Bucharest to scramble fighter jets.

And then later that month in Estonia, NATO says three Russian MiG-31 jets flew over NATO territory for 12 minutes, an eternity for fighter aircraft, before being intercepted by NATO aircraft stationed nearby. Russia claims its jets never crossed into NATO airspace but the alliance says it has data to prove its claim.

More recently drones have disrupted air travel in Denmark, with drones also spotted near military sites. Danish authorities could not conclude who was responsible for what they described as the “hybrid attack,” although Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen suggested it could be Moscow.

A sentry plane from Geilenkirchen was nearby when the incident in Estonia occurred, a NATO spokesperson told CNN. And now NATO is increasing the number of sorties these planes fly as tensions between Russia and the West increase.

“We’re part of a long command and control chain. So, our primary job is to detect it, track it, identify it and report it,” said Wahnon.

The E-3 has a giant rotating radar dish mounted on its fuselage. It allows the operators to track aircraft up to 650 kilometers (400 miles) away if they are flying high. Lower-flying objects can be detected at a range of around 400 kilometers but the plane’s sensors can also see ground vehicles and ships at sea well beyond NATO’s borders.

Surveillance controllers like US Air Force Capt. Jacob Anderson call jets potentially moving towards NATO’s borders “tracks of interest,” which can trigger further action from the E-3’s flight crew.

“At that point, not only my surveillance sections, but the crew as a whole is talking about pushing that track of interest off board so that other players, like national players can maybe launch and intercept it if needed,” Anderson said, while standing at his computer screen showing hundreds of planes moving across Eastern Europe.

If NATO decides to intercept Russian or other planes, the E-3’s crew also functions as a battlespace manager, guiding the alliance’s interceptors towards their targets.

To do all this, the plane has to stay in the air for a very long time.

While the mission CNN was on lasted eight hours, at other times flights can easily last well above 15 hours. So, the pilots need to be proficient at air-to-air refueling, a difficult task with a plane the size of a commercial jetliner like the E-3.

CNN was in the cockpit as the E-3 received gas from a refuelling aircraft also above Polish airspace. Approaching the tanker, the surveillance plane had to fly through the feeder jet’s wake, the turbulence causing it to shake violently at times as it got closer.

“It’s very difficult initially. Even just to get over the fear of ‘we’re getting almost nine to 10 feet close to that aircraft,’” US Air Force Maj. Jason Sanchez, one of the pilots, told CNN.

“Essentially the power management, the lateral management, and making sure that you feel nice and comfortable in your closure from a certain position” are all involved, he said.

The crew also practiced fire drills in flight and “touch and go” landings upon arrival back at NATO’s base in Geilenkirchen – preparing for any potential emergency on missions the defensive alliance’s leadership says are key to deterring Russia.

“Russia’s recklessness in the air along our eastern flank is increasing in frequency,” NATO Secretary Mark Rutte recently said. “Eastern Sentry will add flexibility and strength to our posture.”

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CNN’s Sophie Tanno contributed reporting.