| Lechfeld Airbase
Fliegerhorst Lechfeld |
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|---|---|---|---|
| A Luftwaffe IDS Tornado | |||
| IATA: RBM – ICAO: ETSL | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Military | ||
| Owner | Unified Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Germany | ||
| Operator | Luftwaffe (German Air Force) | ||
| Location | Lagerlechfeld, Germany | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 1,822 ft / 555 m | ||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| m | ft | ||
| 03/21 | 2,442 | 8,012 | Asphalt |
Lechfeld Airbase (IATA: RBM, ICAO: ETSL) is a German Air Force base located 1 km east of Lagerlechfeld in Bavaria, about 20 km south of Augsburg on the Bundestrasse 17.
It is the home of Training Division A of the School of Management Assistance, and of Fighter-Bomber Wing 32 (FBW 32), part of the Luftwaffe 1st Air Division. Two squadrons fly the Panavia Tornado
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In 1912, the military flight operations started at the Lechfeld, but were forbidden after the First World War. Flight operations were resumed in 1934 and a flight school was opened. The Messerschmidt Works at Augsburg used Lagerlechfeld also as a test airfield. Most of the buildings were destroyed by 1945 after several air attacks.
American Army units moved into the Lagerlechfeld area in early May 1945 during the Western Allied Invasion of Germany and seized the airfield with little or no opposition. Initial reconstruction plans for the base to be used as an Army Air Forces field were canceled after the German Capitulation on 7 May, and the facility was garrisoned by United States Army units, although USAAF personnel were sent to the base to evaluate the Messerschmidt aircraft left at the airfield. It was designated as Advanced Landing Ground "R-71"[1]
In December 1945, the facility was turned over to the USAAF, which renamed it Army Air Force Station Lechfeld and was used by various units as an occupation Garrison until being closed on 1 Jun 1947, being put into "standby" status and turned over to the Army garrison at Augsburg for control.
The unreconstructed facility was eventually turned over to the reconstituted German Armed Forces in 1955, and the first German military personnel of the newly created Bundeswehr arrived at the Lechfeld on 7 July 1956. Their task was to rebuild the air base that had been damaged in the Second World War. Two years later, on 22 July 1958, the Fighter Bomber Wing 32 began flight operations with F-84 Thunderstreak aircraft.
On 14 September 1961, two F-84F Thunderstreak from the JaBoG 32 crossed into East German airspace due to a navigational error, eventually landing at Berlin Tegel Airport, evading a large number of Soviet fighter planes. The event came at a historically difficult time during the Cold War, one month after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Oberstleutnant Siegfried Barth, commander of the unit at the time, was transferred for the incident but later, after a number of investigations and complaints, had to be reinstated.[2]
By 1965 FBW 32 received the F-104 Starfighter until they were replaced from 1982 to 1984 by the Panavia Tornado.
Lechfeld was used for several Cold War NATO deployments of USAF/ANG units during the annual "Reforger" exercises.