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Eindhoven Airport (EHEH) lies just west of the city of Eindhoven in Noord-Brabant, a joint civil-military aerodrome that ranks as the second-busiest airport in the Netherlands by passenger numbers. It combines a single long, ILS-equipped runway with an active Royal Netherlands Air Force presence, making it a distinctive destination for the simulator pilot interested in mixed civil-military operations and a deep wartime and Cold War history.
Eindhoven Airport, identified by the ICAO code EHEH, sits to the west of the city of Eindhoven in the province of Noord-Brabant. It is a dual-use aerodrome shared between scheduled and charter civil air traffic and the Royal Netherlands Air Force, and by passenger numbers it is the second-largest airport in the Netherlands. For the sim pilot it offers a single very long hard-surfaced runway with ILS at both ends, a busy mixed traffic environment of airliners and military transport types, and a site whose history runs from a 1930s grass strip through wartime occupation to a modern joint civil-military hub.
The airport is located about 7.6 km west of the centre of Eindhoven. It is a joint civil and military aerodrome with a full suite of air traffic services, including approach, arrival, tower, ground and ATIS positions, reflecting its status as a controlled field handling both scheduled civil flights and Royal Netherlands Air Force operations. A Dutch Military Center and a dedicated Dutch military flight information service are also listed among the frequencies, underlining the significant military character of the surrounding airspace.
Eindhoven has a single physical runway, 03/21, a hard-surfaced strip a little over 9,000 feet long (9,039 ft on the 03 threshold and 9,036 ft on the 21 threshold), lit and equipped with ILS at both ends. Field elevation is 69 feet.
Air traffic services at Eindhoven are provided across several frequencies: RAPCON South Approach on 123.18 MHz, Eindhoven Arrival on 124.53 MHz, Eindhoven Information ATIS on 126.03 MHz, Dutch Military Center on 125.93 MHz, Dutch Military Info (FIS) on 132.35 MHz, Eindhoven Ground on 121.93 MHz, and Eindhoven Tower on 131.005 MHz. The runway is equipped with an ILS to support instrument approaches.
Eindhoven Airport traces its origins to 1932, when it was established as a grass airstrip known as Vliegveld Welschap. In 1939, with tensions rising ahead of the Second World War, the airfield was taken over for use by the Air Force. It was captured by German forces during the Battle of the Netherlands and operated by them under the name Fliegerhorst Eindhoven. The airfield was returned to the Royal Netherlands Air Force in 1952 and went on to host fighter squadrons flying the Republic F-84 Thunderjet, the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, the Northrop NF-5A/B, and finally the General Dynamics F-16A/B Fighting Falcon; 316 Squadron flew the F-16 at Eindhoven until it was inactivated in April 1994. Civil aviation developed alongside the military base, with a terminal building constructed in 1984 to a design by Leo de Bever. On 15 July 1996 the airport was the scene of a serious accident when a Belgian Air Force C-130H Hercules crashed on the field, an event remembered as the Hercules disaster, in which 34 people died in the resulting fire; communication problems within the emergency services, which were not initially aware of the number of passengers aboard, are considered to have contributed to the death toll. The civil side of the airport continued to expand in the following decades, growing into the second-busiest in the Netherlands.
Eindhoven remains a joint civil-military airport. On the military side it is home to 334 Squadron, operating the Airbus A330 MRTT and Gulfstream G650ER, and 336 Squadron, flying the Lockheed C-130H Hercules, along with 940 Maintenance Support Squadron and 941 Miscellaneous Support Squadron. Since 1 July 2007 the airport has hosted the Movement Coordination Centre Europe, which coordinates air and sea-lift transport and air-to-air refuelling capabilities among participating nations, and since September 2010 it has also been home to the European Air Transport Command, a multinational body coordinating military air transport assets across several European nations. On the civil side, scheduled and charter carriers operate flights to more than seventy destinations. Note that the airport is scheduled to close temporarily from 1 February 2027 to 19 July 2027 for renovation of the runway, a point sim pilots planning historical or seasonal flights may wish to bear in mind.
