Did not resist in the air; the army air corps was caught on the ground at Værløse.

Denmark’s government had chosen not to fight a war it could not win, and its air arm paid for that choice in a few minutes. Early on 9 April 1940 German fighters swept over Værløse, north-west of Copenhagen, home of the army’s air corps since 1934. The Nature Agency, which now manages the site, counts 45 aircraft on the field: 11 were totally destroyed and 14 badly damaged. Lex puts it more starkly — every Danish military aircraft parked on the field was destroyed. One aircraft had just taken off; it was shot down, and its crew was killed. Later that morning German paratroops dropped on Aalborg airfield in northern Jutland. The government capitulated at six o’clock; the last fighting, at the Haderslev barracks, ended at 08:15. After that the Germans banned Danish military flying. The navy’s aircraft survived in storage until November 1943, when, after the fleet had been scuttled in August, they were destroyed to keep them out of German hands. When the war ended the Danes had no military aircraft to speak of, which is why the air force of 1950 was built almost from nothing.

Resultado Denmark capitulated at 06:00 the same morning; Danish military flying was banned for the rest of the occupation.

Sources differ on how many aircraft were destroyed at Værløse: 11 destroyed and 14 damaged (Nature Agency) or all parked aircraft (Lex). The names of the crew killed and the aircraft types involved were not confirmed in the sources checked.

Voando para

Army Air Corps (Hærens Flyvertropper) and Naval Air Service

Onde

Zealand and northern Jutland

Ao lado de

Sem força aérea aliada

Contra

Alemanha

Aeronave

Army air corps aircraft at Værløse

Missões

1One Danish aircraft got airborne.

Perdas

Não publicado11 aircraft destroyed and 14 badly damaged of 45 at Værløse (Nature Agency); Lex says all parked aircraft were destroyed. The crew of the one aircraft that took off was killed. Across Denmark 16 Danes were killed that day (13 soldiers and three border gendarmes) and 21 soldiers wounded.

Fontes

Lex (Den Store Danske) · Naturstyrelsen · Lex (Den Store Danske) · Lex (Den Store Danske)

Flew air defence patrols to protect NATO aircraft and ships and, from 30 May 1999, strike missions against military targets.

The official history calls 1998–1999 the air force’s real baptism of fire. Four Danish F-16s deployed to Grazzanise, north of Naples, on 21 January 1999, while NATO still hoped to force a settlement over Kosovo; the detachment grew to eight aircraft in April. When the bombing began on 24 March the Danes flew mainly air defence missions, patrolling and protecting NATO aircraft and ships. Their first offensive mission came late: on 30 May 1999 Major Max Vilhelmsen and his wingman attacked a communications centre in south-western Serbia, dropping six unguided 500-pound Mk 82 bombs — the first bombs the Danish air force had ever dropped in anger. A second attack delivered 12 bombs, and another was being planned when the campaign stopped in early June. Danish Defence’s summary counts about 600 sorties, about 2,250 flying hours and 24 bombs. Vilhelmsen later told Danish Defence’s magazine that the F-16’s weapon delivery system was extremely accurate if the pilot did what he should. It was a modest strike record, but it set the pattern for every Danish air deployment that followed.

Resultado Milošević accepted NATO’s terms on 3 June 1999 and the air campaign was suspended.

Wikipedia gives nine F-16s; Danish Defence says four, rising to eight.

Voando para

Força Aérea Real Dinamarquesa

Onde

Serbia and Kosovo, from Grazzanise, Italy

Ao lado de

OTAN

Contra

República Federal da Iugoslávia

Aeronave

F-16A/B MLU

Missões

600About 600 sorties and about 2,250 flying hours, per Danish Defence.

Perdas

0 aeronaves · 0 mortosNo Danish aircraft lost.

Fontes

Forsvaret · Forsvaret, Honnør no. 3 (November 2021) · Forsvaret · Wikipédia

Flew armed patrols and close air support against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in a joint F-16 detachment with the Netherlands and Norway; Hercules transports supported the coalition to October 2002.

In 2002 Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, three of the four European F-16 partners, sent a joint F-16 detachment to the US-run base beside Manas airport, outside Bishkek in northern Kyrgyzstan. It replaced twelve American F/A-18s and six French Mirages. Danish Defence’s account says the aircraft flew armed patrols and close air support over Afghanistan and several times bombed enemy forces and cave complexes; their authority covered the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban as well as self-defence. About 147 Danish personnel served at Manas. Norway pulled out on 1 April 2003; Denmark and the Netherlands stayed until 1 October 2003. By then the Danish jets had flown 743 missions over Afghanistan, about 4,350 hours. Danish Hercules also flew for the coalition until 1 October 2002. It was the first time Danish fighters had operated for a long period from a base in Central Asia, and the joint Dutch, Norwegian and Danish detachment showed the European F-16 partnership working in the field.

Resultado Denmark and the Netherlands kept their F-16s at Manas until 1 October 2003.

Wikipedia gives six F-16s; the official page does not state the number. The number of weapons dropped is not published.

Voando para

Força Aérea Real Dinamarquesa

Onde

Afghanistan, from Manas, Kyrgyzstan

Ao lado de

United States, Netherlands and Norway

Contra

al-Qaeda and Taliban

Aeronave

F-16A/B MLU, C-130H

Missões

743743 missions, about 4,350 flying hours.

Perdas

0 aeronaves · 0 mortosNo Danish aircraft lost.

Fontes

Forsvaret · Forsvaret · Wikipédia

Flew transport, helicopter and air traffic control support for the NATO-led mission; no Danish fighter aircraft took part.

The air force’s longest Afghan commitment was not flown by fighters. From 12 May 2005 a Danish Hercules flew from Kabul International Airport for ISAF, and the air force provided short-range radars for Kabul airport until 2009. In April 2008 it sent Fennec helicopters to Helmand, where the Danish battle group was fighting, until November 2008. As the mission moved north, a long-range AN/TPS-77 radar with a range of about 750 km was set up at Camp Marmal, Mazar-e-Sharif, in 2012, with another radar at Kunduz, and a mobile air control unit of about 210 personnel served in the country. From July 2014 to September 2015 three EH101 Merlins and 76 soldiers flew transport from Mazar-e-Sharif. The air force also had people at Kandahar, Camp Shorabak and Kabul between 2005 and 2014, including dog handlers from 2009. None of it made headlines, but it kept Danish airmen in Afghanistan for a decade after the fighters had gone home.

Resultado The last air force detachment, three Merlins at Mazar-e-Sharif, came home in September 2015.

Hours, sorties and passenger totals are not given on the official page.

Voando para

Força Aérea Real Dinamarquesa

Onde

Afeganistão

Ao lado de

OTAN

Contra

Talibã

Aeronave

C-130, AS550 Fennec, EH101 Merlin

Missões

—Não foi publicado como um dado consolidado.

Perdas

0 aeronavesNo air force aircraft lost in the sources checked.

Fontes

Forsvaret · Forsvaret

Enforced UN Security Council Resolution 1973 and struck military targets of the Gaddafi regime.

The Libyan campaign was the Danish air force’s most intensive war. Two days after UN Security Council Resolution 1973 of 17 March 2011, the operation began, and on 20 March Danish F-16s flew their first mission from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. Six jets were sent, four for operations and two in reserve, with about 120 personnel at first; over seven months 338 Danes served in 475 rotations. At the start the detachment flew four missions a day, later only one or two. By the end on 31 October the F-16s had flown 600 missions and dropped 923 precision-guided munitions on command and control sites, ammunition bunkers and depots, SCUD launchers, tanks, rocket launchers and self-propelled artillery. Wikipedia, summarising the published record, counts 43 missions and 107 bombs in the opening US-led Odyssey Dawn phase and credits the Danes with bombing about 17 per cent of all targets in Libya, a share far beyond the size of the force; NATO flew some 26,500 sorties in all. The tempo showed what a detachment of four operational jets could do, and how hard it could be pushed.

Resultado Gaddafi’s regime fell; the Danish mission ended on 31 October 2011.

The 17 per cent share of targets comes from Wikipedia and could not be confirmed on an official Danish page; treat it as a reported claim. Mission totals differ by one (600 against 599).

Voando para

Força Aérea Real Dinamarquesa

Onde

Libya, from Sigonella, Sicily

Ao lado de

NATO, United States, United Kingdom, France and Norway

Contra

Libya (Gaddafi government)

Aeronave

F-16AM/BM, C-130J

Missões

600600 missions per Danish Defence (Wikipedia: 599).

Perdas

0 aeronaves · 0 mortosNo aircraft lost and no incidents recorded on the official page.

Fontes

Forsvaret · Wikipédia · Forsvaret

F-16s struck Islamic State targets in Iraq and, according to Danish Defence’s farewell to the F-16, in Syria; later Danish contributions were staff and advisers.

Danish Defence’s history records that F-16s helped fight ISIL in Iraq from 2014 to 2016, and the air force’s farewell to the F-16 in January 2026 lists Syria and Iraq among the type’s five theatres alongside the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya. Wikipedia, used here as a finding aid, puts seven F-16AMs and about 140 personnel at Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait. The operation’s own history shows how small nations fought it: of all coalition airstrikes, about 80 per cent were American, with Denmark among the eleven other nations that flew the rest. The official Danish operations archive, which details Libya and Kosovo sortie by sortie, has no equivalent page for the F-16 deployments against Islamic State, so mission and bomb totals are not given here. The commitment continued long after the jets came home: in December 2025 the ministry extended a contribution of nine personnel providing coordination, advice and planning in Iraq, Qatar and the United States, and noted that Denmark had previously sent F-16s to the fight.

Resultado Islamic State lost its territory; Denmark’s contribution in 2025 is nine staff officers in Iraq, Qatar and the United States.

Deployment dates, the number of aircraft and all mission and bomb totals are UNVERIFIED on official pages and are left out; the Kuwait base and seven-aircraft figure are from Wikipedia only.

Voando para

Força Aérea Real Dinamarquesa

Onde

Iraq and Syria, from Kuwait

Ao lado de

United States and Coalition against ISIL

Contra

Estado Islâmico

Aeronave

F-16AM/BM, C-130J

Missões

—Not found on the official pages checked.

Perdas

0 aeronaves · 0 mortosNo Danish aircraft lost in the sources checked.

Fontes

Forsvaret · Forsvaret · Forsvarsministeriet · Wikipédia · Wikipédia

Guards Danish airspace with two fighters on quick reaction alert and flies NATO air policing rotations in the Baltic states and Iceland.

Air policing is the air force’s one permanent operation. At home two fighters stand on quick reaction alert at Skrydstrup all year. Danish Defence counts 80 scrambles in 2022, 55 in 2023, 81 in 2024 and 89 in 2025 up to 30 November, almost all over the Baltic Sea. The F-35 flew its first alert mission at the end of March 2025, against a Russian Il-20 near Bornholm, and took over the duty from the F-16 on 1 April 2025. Abroad, Denmark first flew NATO Baltic Air Policing from Šiauliai in Lithuania from 1 July 2004 with four F-16s, and returned in 2009, 2011, 2013 and, from Ämari in Estonia, in 2014, with later rotations after 2019. In 2022 four F-16s and about 60 personnel covered Iceland. The F-35 is booked for Iceland for three weeks between April and July 2028, with four aircraft and about 75 people, and Danish F-35s were the first contribution to NATO’s Arctic Sentry, launched on 13 February 2026, training with Swedish Gripens from Iceland. In January 2026 the government also promised fighter aircraft for more exercises in Greenland.

Resultado Continuing; the F-35 has held national QRA since 1 April 2025.

Baltic rotations after 2014 are listed inconsistently in Wikipedia and are summarised rather than dated.

Voando para

Força Aérea Real Dinamarquesa

Onde

Baltic states, Iceland, the Arctic and Danish airspace

Ao lado de

OTAN

Contra

—

Aeronave

F-16AM/BM, F-35A

Missões

—National scrambles: 80 (2022), 55 (2023), 81 (2024), 89 (2025 to 30 November).

Perdas

0 aeronaves · 0 mortosNone.

Fontes

Forsvaret · Forsvaret · Forsvaret · Wikipédia · Forsvarsministeriet · Forsvarsministeriet · Forsvarsministeriet