Departure
92%
vs 95% ▼ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Florennes Air Base, home to the Belgian Air Force's 2nd Tactical Wing, sits in the rolling countryside of Wallonia a few kilometres east-southeast of the town of Florennes. Operating F-16s (transitioning to the F-35A) alongside a rich wartime and Cold War history, it is a striking military field for the simulator pilot, with two long hard-surfaced runways and full ILS coverage.
Florennes Air Base, known locally as Base Jean Offenberg, is an active Belgian Air Force installation in Wallonia, Belgium, operated by the Belgian Air Component. It is the home of the 2nd Tactical Wing, currently flying the General Dynamics F-16 with a transition to the F-35A Lightning II underway, and it also hosts drone and support squadrons. For the simulator pilot the field offers a taste of a busy modern fast-jet base layered over a long and eventful history, from Luftwaffe night fighters to a Cold War cruise missile deployment and a multinational NATO training programme.
The base lies about 4 km (2 miles) east-southeast of the town of Florennes, in Wallonia, Belgium, at coordinates 50.2433N, 4.6458E. As an active military airbase it sits within controlled airspace associated with its own approach and tower services, and civilian VFR traffic should expect restricted or coordinated access rather than open joining as at a civil aerodrome.
Florennes has two parallel hard-surfaced runways. The main runway, 08L/26R, is approximately 10,119 to 10,120 feet long, lit, and equipped with an ILS. The secondary runway, 08R/26L, is approximately 6,861 to 6,871 feet long and lit, without a published ILS. Field elevation is 906 feet.
Published frequencies for the field are Approach (APP) on 122.5 MHz, Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) on 123.3 MHz, Ground (GND) on 122.1 MHz, and Tower (TWR) on 122.1 MHz. An ILS is available on the main runway, 08L/26R.
The airbase lies close to the town of Florennes itself, roughly 4 km to the west-northwest, which serves as the principal visual landmark for locating the field from the air.
The airfield was built in 1936 and by May 1940, following the German invasion of Belgium, it was taken over by the Luftwaffe, which operated Junkers Ju 88 and Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighters and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 day fighters from the site during the occupation. It was recaptured by Allied forces in September 1944 and redesignated Advanced Landing Ground A-78, subsequently hosting the USAAF 430th Fighter Squadron flying P-38 Lightnings in the ground-attack role and the 422nd Night Fighter Squadron flying P-61 Black Widows. In 1948 the Belgian Air Force took over the base, equipping successive units with Spitfires, F-84E Thunderjets, F-84F Thunderstreaks, Mirage V variants and, from 1988, the F-16. From 1984 to 1990 the USAF's 485th Tactical Missile Wing was based at Florennes, deploying the BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile system until its removal under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. From March 1989 to July 2009 the base hosted the Tactical Leadership Programme, a multinational NATO flying training and doctrine-development programme that had grown to involve ten member nations before relocating to Albacete in Spain. On 11 October 2018 a Belgian F-16AM was destroyed in a fire after a technician accidentally discharged its Vulcan cannon during maintenance, the rounds rupturing the fuel tank of a freshly fuelled neighbouring aircraft; two technicians were injured and two further F-16s suffered collateral damage.
Florennes remains home to the 2nd Tactical Wing, comprising 1 Squadron (formed 1917, the first Belgian unit to receive the F-35A), the reactivated 2 Squadron flying the MQ-9B SkyGuardian drone, the newly formed 10 Squadron supporting F-35 operations, and 350 Squadron, which traces its origins to a unit founded in the United Kingdom in 1942 and currently flies the F-16. The base also hosts the Belgian Defence Aeroclub ASBL. A Spitfire Museum associated with the airbase can be visited, though the airbase itself is not open to the general public and is not to be entered without authorisation; civilian and visiting aircraft should expect that prior permission is required.
