Sergio Gor at Tarang Shakti turned into the story out of Air Force Station Jodhpur on Sunday, as the American envoy toured the ongoing exercise a day after six F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters landed at the base for the type's first-ever Tarang Shakti participation.

Mr Sergio Gor, Ambassador of the United States to India, took in the jointness, interoperability and camaraderie among the participating air forces, the Indian Air Force said.


The F-35s that prompted the visit

American airpower arrived at Jodhpur a day earlier, with six F-35 Lightning IIs and more than 200 US Air Force personnel landing for the aircraft's first participation in Tarang Shakti. The jets, drawn from among the US Air Force's premier fifth-generation squadrons, are set to fly alongside the IAF and other partner air forces for the rest of the exercise.

"Excited to see America's premier fifth-generation fighters make its Tarang Shakti debut, flying alongside the IAF and partners," Gor said in a post announcing the arrival.


Sergio Gor at Tarang Shakti, and a French vice chief's parallel visit

Away from Gor's engagement, Lt Gen Dominique Tardif, Vice Chief of the French Air and Space Force, held talks with AVM Raj Thakur, the Exercise Director for Tarang Shakti 2026. The Indian Air Force described the meeting as reaffirming what it called the strong bonds and growing cooperation between the IAF and the French service.

France's presence already has a name this year

It has deployed to Jodhpur under Mission Pegase 26, its long-range Indo-Pacific air power mission, sending Rafale fighters, A330 MRTT tankers and A400M transport aircraft for the length of the exercise.

The deployment itself runs four Rafale F4 fighters, three A330 MRTT Phenix tankers and two A400M Atlas transports, with close to 300 aircrew, all of whom arrived at Jodhpur on 26 September for a mission timed to run alongside the exercise's own three weeks rather than as a single flypast.

France has flown at every edition of Tarang Shakti since the exercise began in 2024, when its contingent operated three Rafales and a single A400M out of Air Force Station Sulur alongside Germany and Spain. This year's deployment is considerably larger.

Lt Gen Tardif's meeting with AVM Thakur sits on top of that presence, not apart from it.

What the exercise brings together this year

Tarang Shakti 2026 is running at Jodhpur from 26 September to 12 October, and the guest list explains why an ambassador and a vice chief both found time for it in the same week. IAF Vice Chief Air Mshl Ashutosh Dixit had briefed reporters before the exercise opened that eight friendly foreign countries would fly alongside the IAF, with roughly three dozen more nations attending as observers, a scale that has now delivered both the F-35s and the French contingent inside the same fortnight.

Jodhpur itself is hosting the whole three-week exercise this year, a change from the previous edition in 2024, which ran out of Air Force Station Sulur in Tamil Nadu. This desk has tracked what the F-35's presence means for the IAF in a separate piece.

The wider picture at Jodhpur

Gor has kept up a busy defence-adjacent calendar since presenting his credentials to President Droupadi Murmu in January, and Jodhpur puts him at the country's largest multinational air exercise to date.

The Tarang Shakti stop follows a visit three days earlier, when Gor watched a live firepower demonstration at Mahajan Field Firing Ranges during Yudh Abhyas, hosted by Lt Gen Vikrant Suresh Deshpande, GOC 10 Corps, alongside Pinaka, M777 and HIMARS units.

Two visits, one air base

Lt Gen Tardif arrived with the same French Air and Space Force contingent that had flown in under Mission Pegase 26 two days earlier, which is what put Sergio Gor at Tarang Shakti and a French vice chief in the same frame at the same base, within a day of the F-35s themselves touching down.