PDB Situation Report | March 7th, 2026: Fighter Pilot Breaks Down The First Week Of The Iran Air War
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the BDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And yes, I am back on the road. All right, let's get briefed. First up, we're now one week into the conflict with Iran. Maybe you heard about it. And the air campaign shows no signs of slowing as coalition aircraft continue hitting military targets across the country. Former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Ryan Bodenheimer, you may know him as Max Afterburner, joins us to give us his insight into the ongoing air campaign. Later in the show, the fight against Tehran may be moving onto the ground with reports that Kurdish forces could soon engage Iranian troops along the western border. We'll break it down with Bill Grosio from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. The U.S. and Israeli air campaign over Iran continues to intensify, with coalition aircraft striking missile launch sites, air defense systems, and military infrastructure across the country. Officials say the goal is to degrade Tehran's ability to retaliate while steadily dismantling the regime's command-and-control networks. Over the past week, waves of aircraft and long-range strikes have targeted radar installations, air bases, and ballistic missile facilities, all part of a broader effort to establish air superiority and keep Iran's remaining military assets under constant pressure. The big question now is how sustainable that campaign is and what targets may come next.
Joining me now is Ryan Bodenheimer, a.k.a. Max Afterburner. Now, he's a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who flew 70 combat missions in the Middle East. You can check him out on his YouTube channel at Max Afterburner USA.
What is the current status of the Iran Air War?
Ryan, welcome back, man, to the PDB Situation Report. Mike, thanks for being here, man. Thanks for having me. We got a lot to talk about today. Do we? Do we now? I think so. I think there's a little something going on. Yeah, okay. Well, let's get into it. Give me, if you could, your assessment. I know this is a big, broad question, but give me your assessment so far of the air campaign. Yeah, I think we've seen kind of the systematic approach, which is normal. So there's operational plans that are built that have all these different phases in them. Now they're classified. I had the ability to work on those with the F-15E and basically the air campaign just gives you a phased approach to achieve air dominance and that's something that we kind of we saw happen play out so early on you do what's called standoff weaponry so you use uh agm-158s these are like stealthy cruise missiles i mean you can see videos online of these stealthy cruise missiles going in at low altitude initially hitting a lot of the iads the integrated air defenses
So everything I can tell is it followed just a really solid approach to, all right, take down the different things that can shoot us. And that you need to do that off the bat with stealth and standoff. So it looks like that was executed really well. It looked like air dominance was achieved within a few hours. And that's combined with different cyber systems, space systems to also... help take down the ability of the Iranian regime's ayats to communicate with each other. So that really followed what I think was a very solid recipe for success in the southern part of Iran to allow then, now we've got heavy bombers going in with impunity at this point. So there's different phases, but that first phase is basically create what's called silent corridors where you can't get targeted from the different surface-to-air missile systems.
And then you just ramp that up, make sure those things stay quiet, and you have the ability to strike them as they turn on. And now you just have the bombers go in and start just taking out targets. Were you surprised at how quickly the military declared they had air superiority over Iran? You know, I thought it would be a little harder than Venezuela, but I think it's just it's a testament to the focus of their specific squadrons in the U.S.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:12–1:55
2
What is the current status of the Iran Air War?
1:55–4:45
3
How are coalition air campaigns targeting Iran's military?
4:45–8:34
4
What insights does Ryan Bodenheimer provide about air superiority?
8:34–15:42
5
How does the U.S. Air Force achieve air dominance?
15:42–33:14
6
What role could Kurdish forces play in the Iran conflict?
33:14–41:19
7
What are the risks of Kurdish involvement against Iran?
41:19–1:03:47
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