Abstract : Although emulation environments provide a baseline for how systems will perform in real life, field tests are crucial to demonstrate capabilities in real-world operating environments. In this paper, we describe and characterize an open source router implementation with extensions to support OSPFv3 MANET designed router, OSPFv3 dual stack address families, OSPF link metrics cross layer support, simplified multicast forwarding (SMF), and a radio-to-router interface performance in an airborne environment. Three airborne assets participated in the exercise to form a high capacity aerial backbone made of heterogeneous radio technologies and operating parameters. The assets and radio technologies formed dynamically routed airbridge 250 Nm and allowed the passing of military operational data.