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Lechfeld Air Base is a German Air Force installation in Bavaria, close to Lagerlechfeld and roughly 20 km south of Augsburg, notable as the site of the world's first operational jet fighter trials and now home to Luftwaffe transport and training units. For a simulator pilot it offers a long hard-surface military runway alongside a shorter grass strip, set within a compact military airspace footprint south of Augsburg.
Lechfeld Air Base, identified by the ICAO code ETSL, is a German Air Force (Luftwaffe) installation situated near Lagerlechfeld in Bavaria, about 20 kilometres south of Augsburg. It has long been associated with fast-jet flying, having hosted fighter-bomber wings flying the F-84, F-104 and Panavia Tornado, and it is now being developed as a second operating base for the Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft. For a virtual pilot, the field is of interest both for its long military runway and for its deep history as a test and training airfield.
The base lies in Bavaria, about 1 km east of Lagerlechfeld and some 20 km south of Augsburg, close to the Bundesstrasse 17. As an active German Air Force base, it sits within military-controlled airspace and is not a civil field; pilots should expect restricted or controlled airspace typical of an active Luftwaffe installation in this part of southern Germany.
Lechfeld has two physical runways. The main runway, 03/21, is a hard-surfaced strip 8,761 feet long and lit. A secondary runway, 08/26, is a grass surface 3,466 feet long, also lit.
Published frequencies for the field include a tower frequency of 122.1 MHz, radar service on 123.3 MHz and 34.4 MHz, and an area control frequency of 129.45 MHz associated with Munich control. No ILS approach is available at the field.
Military flying at Lechfeld dates back to 1912, when the German Army began flight operations at the site, though these were halted after the First World War. Flying resumed in 1934 with the opening of a flight school, and the Messerschmitt Works at Augsburg subsequently used Lagerlechfeld as a test airfield. On 22 May 1943, Adolf Galland made his first flight in the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter from Lechfeld, reportedly telling Hermann Göring that "it felt as if angels were pushing." From April 1944, a Luftwaffe service test unit trained operational pilots on the Me 262A at the base, though most of its buildings were destroyed by air attack by 1945. American forces occupied the airfield in early May 1945 during the Allied advance into Germany, designating it Advanced Landing Ground "R-71." It was later renamed Army Air Force Station Lechfeld under United States Army Air Forces control before being placed in standby status and closed in June 1947. The site was handed to the reconstituted German Armed Forces in 1955, with the first Bundeswehr personnel arriving in July 1956 to rebuild the war-damaged base. Flight operations resumed on 22 July 1958 when 32 Fighter Bomber Wing began flying F-84 Thunderstreak aircraft. On 14 September 1961, two of the wing's F-84Fs strayed into East German airspace due to a navigational error and landed at Berlin Tegel, an incident that occurred amid heightened Cold War tensions shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall; the unit's commander, Oberstleutnant Siegfried Barth, was transferred as a result but later reinstated. The wing converted to the F-104 Starfighter in 1965 and then to the Panavia Tornado between 1982 and 1984. During the Cold War, Lechfeld also hosted periodic NATO deployments of USAF and Air National Guard units during the annual Reforger exercises. Following a 2011 Bundeswehr reorganisation, 32 Fighter Bomber Wing was disbanded on 31 March 2013, and the base's garrison was significantly reduced.
Lechfeld today houses a branch of the German Air Force Engineering Training Centre along with elements of the German Armed Forces Command Support School. In 2019 it was announced that the base would become the second home for the Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft, with a number of these aircraft due to be based there alongside the main A400M base at Wunstorf. In June 2023 the airfield played a part in Air Defender 23, described as the largest air exercise held under NATO leadership since the alliance's founding. As an active military installation, access for civilian or simulator-style visiting traffic is not applicable in the usual General Aviation sense, and any flying activity would require prior permission.
