Beja Airport

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aeroporto de Beja
Base Aérea de Beja
BejaAB.jpg
Characteristics
ICAO code LPBJ
IATA code BYJ
Coordinates

38 ° 4 '44 "  N , 7 ° 55' 57"  W Coordinates: 38 ° 4 '44 "  N , 7 ° 55' 57"  W.
Height above MSL 194 m (636  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 10 km northwest of Beja
Street 6 km to the IP2
Basic data
opening 1964
operator ANA
FAP
Passengers 259 (2016)
Flight
movements 		34 (2016)
Runways
01L / 19R 3450 m × 60 m concrete
01R / 19L 2951 m × 30 m concrete

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The Beja Airport ( port. : Aeroporto de Beja ) is since 15 April 2011 civil mitgenutzter military airfield of the Portuguese Air Force Força Aérea Portuguesa (FAP) who see him as Base Aérea Nº11 (BA11) and Base Aérea de Beja referred. It is located northwest of Beja and is mainly used for flight training. However, it was erected in the 1960s by the German Air Force.

In the event of an emergency, Beja would also have been used as an emergency landing site for the US space shuttle .

history

The Beja military airfield opened on October 21, 1964. Due to the limited air space and less favorable weather conditions in Germany, it was created as a flight training center for the West German Air Force . The air force used Beja in the following decades, especially for weapons training. In 1993 the use by the Air Force ended.

The Portuguese Air Force began to use Beja for training purposes from 1987 and relocated the 103rd Squadron, which had been based in Montijo, to Beja. This was equipped with Lockheed T-33 and Northrop T-38 at that time . The former were taken out of service until 1991.

At the same time as the takeover of the German Alpha Jets (see below), the T-38A were taken out of service in June 1993. In November of the same year, the 552nd Squadron, equipped with Alouette III and previously stationed at Base Aérea Nº3 (BA3) in Tancos , moved to Beja. The TB 30 of the 101st season, which was relocated to Sintra in 2009 , was also located here .

In November 2008 the 601st squadron, which had previously been in Montijo, was relocated to Beja with its P-3C Orion and in June 2015 Beja was the base for the European Air Transport Training of the European Air Transport Command .

A civil joint use was made possible by the construction of a terminal building in 2011; the idea behind it was the inclusion in the flight network of low-cost airlines . The inaugural flight took place on April 13, 2011, destination was Praia on the Cape Verde Islands . However, after a few promotional flights in 2011, no airline added Beja to their route network.

Over time, the number of Alpha Jets in operation was gradually reduced and when the last Alpha Jets were taken out of service in 2018, the Esquadra 103 was also deactivated. The season also had an aerobatic team, the Asas de Portugal .

In 2019, the modernization of the Esquadra 552 helicopter fleet began when the first AW119 Mk.II helicopters arrived in Portugal in February . The last flight of an Alouette III took place 16 months later in June 2020.

In the same month, the relocation of the 101st squadron, still equipped with TB 30, began from Sintra to Beja.

Beja and the Air Force

Beja Airport was built within five years and cost more than DM 140 million at the time . The plan was to use Beja as a military flight school center in particular. This also included retraining for the F-104 Starfighter, which was then being procured . In addition, a logistics center and spare parts warehouse for all types of aircraft at the time were to be established and both fighter jets and transporters were to be serviced. However, due to lack of money, a changed defense concept and failure to take into account factors restricting the use, he was never able to fully fulfill this role.

The idea of ​​establishing the flight center fell during the term of office of Franz Josef Strauss as Federal Defense Minister . This was initially to be developed in Spain, where decades later the Tactical Leadership Program (TLP), an international training program for combat aircraft crews, was created.

It was not possible to contractually guarantee a general overflight right from Spain in good time. Later, each flight had to be announced individually 14 days in advance, and there was a risk that Spain would not approve overflights in the event of a conflict. After France left the military structure of NATO, the rights to fly over France were no longer guaranteed. Nevertheless, the expansion continued. These included two 4000 and 3200 m long runways, three maintenance hangars suitable for transport aircraft and a complex for the Starfighter maintenance.

Due to the new NATO strategy of " flexible response " instead of " massive retaliation ", a deployment of forces far away from the potential main theater of war in Central Europe was no longer appropriate. The new strategy required the availability of all armed forces in the Federal Republic.

In addition, there were budget problems in the defense budget. In order to meet US foreign exchange demands, too, the federal government was forced to relocate the entire fighter pilot training from basic training to retraining to the operational model (then the F-104 and later the F-4 ) to the United States. Basic training continues to take place there. The training on deployment samples has meanwhile been transferred to Germany.

The German plans for Beja were only revised during the grand coalition . Buildings that had not yet started were canceled and the interior of the F-104 maintenance hall (also jokingly referred to by soldiers as the “FJS Memorial Hall”) was no longer completed. Alternative uses were considered, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

A number of G.91 and later Alpha Jet fighter aircraft were stationed in Beja , which were subordinated to the German Air Force Command Beja - that was the name until 1984, from March 1984 it became the tactical training command in Portugal. The sparsely populated Alentejo was particularly suitable for low-level flights for Alpha Jet and the twice-weekly supply Transall. Bomb dropping was also trained in Alverca. In addition, training commandos from the German fighter-bomber squadron were present two to three times a year. Most recently, the contract provided for 4,000 flight hours.

In the run-up to the expiry of the usage contract, the Portuguese government urged the German federal government in 1989 to give it free of charge 50 of the Alpha Jets that the Air Force had planned to retire. Portugal received the desired Alpha Jets; With its decommissioning by the Air Force, however, the need for further use of Beja by the Germans also ceased, so that in 1993 the Air Force dissolved the unit, which had been known as the Tactical Training Command of the Air Force in Portugal since 1986 , and withdrew from Portugal.

Military use

Alpha Jet in special paint for the 50th birthday of the Esquadra 103 (Luftwaffe ex 40 + 37), behind it an Alouette III, 2005

The base is currently (2020) used as follows:

  • Esquadra 101 , equipped with TB 30 helicopters since 2020
  • Esquadra 552 , equipped with AW119 Mk.II helicopters since 2019
  • Esquadra 601 , equipped with P-3C Orion patrol aircraft since 2008 .

Civil use

Terminal building, 2010

The civil part of the airport was built for 33 million euros and opened in 2011. Since then it has only been used for charter flights, including flights as part of the region's hunting tourism . The charter airline Hi Fly uses it as a technical base. The number of flights handled fell far short of expectations. In the first year, only 104 flights with 2,568 passengers were handled. Intermediate discussions on agreements on regular flight connections, in particular with the Cape Verdean airline TACV and the low-cost airline Ryanair , had remained fruitless. The reasons given by the press were mostly excessive airport charges. An improvement in capacity utilization was expected from 2017 onwards.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Annual Reports. ANA.pt , accessed September 5, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Portugal retires Alpha Jet - FliegerWeb.com - News reports Videos! Retrieved August 3, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Beja: Two of the new Koala helicopters ... are already in BA11. Lidador Noticias, February 18, 2019
  4. ↑ Portugal has retired the Alouette III. Aerobuzz, June 24, 2020
  5. ↑ This is where the used giant plane flies faz.net. Retrieved August 2, 2018
  6. ↑ Article of April 13, 2012 in the weekly newspaper Sol , accessed on January 11, 2014