Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Zutendaal Air Base is a reserve Belgian Air Force station set in the Limburg heathland east-southeast of Genk, best known to history as the wartime Advanced Landing Ground Y-29. Today the base is largely dormant, used for helicopter storage, but its single long hard runway hosts a weekend gliding club under limited civilian access.
Zutendaal Air Base, identified as EBSL, lies in Flanders near the town of Zutendaal in Limburg Province and is operated as a reserve facility of the Belgian Air Force. Its primary current role is the storage of retired Agusta helicopters, but since 2009 the field has been opened to limited civilian recreational flying and is home to a gliding club that operates at weekends. For a simulator pilot, the appeal lies as much in the field's dramatic wartime history as in its present quiet, semi-dormant character.
The base sits approximately 6.4 km (4 miles) east-southeast of Genk, and roughly 80 km (50 miles) east-northeast of Brussels, in the Limburg heathland of Flanders. It lies near the towns of As, Opglabbeek and Houthalen, an area that historically also hosted a German artillery-observer firing range.
Zutendaal has a single physical runway, 06/24, of hard surface construction and 8,287 ft (2,526 m) in length, equipped with lighting. There is no ILS at the field.
No communications frequencies are published for Zutendaal Air Base, and there is no instrument landing system.
The airfield's origins trace to March 1917, when the German Army Air Corps built it as the "Flieger Schießschule", a training establishment for artillery observers, with an associated firing range covering the heath between Houthalen, Genk, As, Peer and Opglabbeek. After the First World War the site, renamed Asch, became home to the Flying School of the Belgian Military Aviation and later the Aéronautique Militaire, with a large 1,100 by 800 metre grass airfield, metal hangars and brick support buildings sited 2 km southwest of As. The school closed in 1924 to make way for a proposed canal, its personnel moving to Wevelgem, and the site reverted to woodland. In November 1944 the United States Army Air Forces IX Engineer Command, through its 852nd and 846th Engineer Aviation Battalions, built a new airfield nearby, a single 5,000 foot sod runway aligned 06/24, known as Advanced Landing Ground "Y-29". Tents, an access road, fuel and ammunition dumps, water supply and a basic electrical grid were installed to support flying operations. Y-29 became home to P-51 Mustangs of the 352nd Fighter Group and P-47 Thunderbolts of the 366th Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force, from 19 November 1944, with the 406th Fighter Group also flying P-47s from the field between February and April 1945. On 1 January 1945 the base was the scene of a major air battle during the Luftwaffe's Operation Bodenplatte, when Fw 190s and Bf 109s of Jagdgeschwader 11 attacked just as the 487th Fighter Squadron was taking off; the squadron claimed 23 kills for only two damaged aircraft, an action later known as the Legend of Y-29, for which it received the only Distinguished Unit Citation awarded to a fighter squadron in the European theatre. The 391st Bombardment Group later flew B-26 Marauders from the field until it closed on 20 June 1945. After the war the Belgian Air Force took over the site and rebuilt it with hard-surfaced runways and permanent buildings.
The base remains in reserve status under the Belgian Air Force, its principal current use being the storage of retired Agusta helicopters. Since 2009 it has been open to limited civilian recreational flying and is home to a gliding club that operates on weekends.
