Departure
87%
vs 95% ▼ 8
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Saint Hubert Air Base is a Belgian military reserve airfield tucked into the forests of the Ardennes near the town of Saint-Hubert in Wallonia, Luxembourg Province. Built in the early 1950s to NATO standards, it once hosted Canadian Sabre squadrons and today survives as a largely dormant 'bare base' with a single long hard runway, making it a curious historical waypoint for the sim pilot rather than an active destination.
Saint Hubert Air Base (ICAO EBSU) is a NATO reserve airfield owned and operated by the Air Component of the Belgian Armed Forces, sited amid forest near the town of Saint-Hubert in Wallonia. It has no regular flying programme and is essentially a bare base, with two medium-sized hangars and very limited parking, but its long single runway and quiet, overgrown character give it a distinctive atmosphere for a virtual visit.
The airfield lies in Wallonia, in Luxembourg Province, close to the town of Saint-Hubert, within Belgian airspace. It was built as one of a network of NATO reserve airfields established across Belgium between 1950 and 1955, intended to supplement the country's operational air bases rather than to handle routine traffic.
The field has a single physical runway, 06/24, with a hard surface and a length of around 8,510 feet (8510 ft for runway 06 and 8509 ft for runway 24). There is no ILS. Older records describe the runway as oriented 07/25 and give a slightly shorter length of about 2,599 metres (8,528 feet) in concrete and asphalt, suggesting the runway designation has been updated over time even though the physical strip remains essentially the same.
No communications frequencies are published for Saint Hubert Air Base, and there is no known air-ground or air traffic control service. No navigational aids or instrument approach procedures are recorded for the field.
No published joining or circuit procedures are available for this airfield. Historical accounts note that runway lighting, including approach lighting, was installed only on the eastern end of the strip (the 25/24 direction), with no lighting on the opposite threshold; by the early 2010s this lighting was reported to still be present, if aged.
The airfield sits within forested Ardennes terrain typical of the area around Saint-Hubert, and from the air the two surviving hangars alongside the runway are a useful visual cue. A small circular building with a glazed dome, once housing the runway lighting switchgear, stood a few hundred metres from the 07 threshold in older accounts, though it is obscured by trees and not easily seen from above.
Saint Hubert was constructed in the early 1950s at NATO's request as one of a series of reserve airfields built or upgraded across Belgium to NATO runway standards of the period; its main runway was later extended by around 400 metres, short of the full lengthening given to operational bases. From at least 1959 to 1966 it served as a dispersal airfield for Canadian squadrons based at Grostenquin Air Base in France, with Canadair Sabres and CT-133 aircraft of squadrons such as 430 Squadron using the base annually. In the early 1980s the airfield was used periodically by Belgian Air Component Alouette II helicopter units from Brasschaat for tactical flying exercises, with personnel accommodated in basic facilities within the airfield's hangars, including a nuclear shelter fitted with a hand-cranked generator. By the early 2010s the site remained recognisable but increasingly overgrown, with the runway still largely intact though showing cracking and grass growth.
Saint Hubert continues to be held by the Belgian Air Component as a reserve, bare-base facility with no regular flying operations and only minimal infrastructure, comprising two hangars and limited parking. It has been reported to see occasional use by Belgian Air Component C-130H Hercules aircraft and A-109 helicopters, though not by fast jets, and much of its original equipment, including runway lighting, is old and of uncertain current serviceability.
