Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Moi Air Base, the former RAF Eastleigh and Kenya's first international airport, lies in the Eastleigh suburb just east of Nairobi's city centre. Today it is the headquarters of the Kenya Air Force and home to the East African School of Aviation, with two paved runways, including one over 8000 feet long, sitting at a demanding elevation of 5295 feet. Its long military and civil aviation history, from Fairey biplanes to Hawker Hunters, makes it a fascinating study for a simulator pilot interested in East African aviation heritage.
Moi Air Base, known historically as RAF Eastleigh and later Eastleigh Airport, is a military airfield situated in the Eastleigh suburb to the east of Nairobi, Kenya. It is operated by the Kenya Air Force and also hosts the East African School of Aviation, run by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, as well as training for Kenyan Air Cadets. For a sim pilot, the field is notable both for its high elevation, which has long constrained its runway length and aircraft operations, and for its layered history as a colonial RAF station, Nairobi's principal international airport in the 1940s and 1950s, and now the headquarters of a modern air force.
The airfield sits in the northern part of the Eastleigh suburb, close to Nairobi's central business district, to the east of the city. Because of its military status it does not appear on official civilian maps of Nairobi, with the area left blank, although it remains visible on satellite imagery. Its proximity to the city centre has historically limited the ability to extend its runways.
Moi Air Base has two physical runways. The main runway, 06/24, is a hard-surfaced strip 8002 to 8003 feet long and lit. A secondary runway, 14/32, is 4179 feet long with an unpaved surface and is also lit. Field elevation is 5295 feet, a significant factor for aircraft performance given the length of the runways.
The field is served by a tower frequency, EASTLEIGH TWR, on 124.3 MHz. There is no ILS approach available at the airfield.
The airfield's origins lie in the arrival of a detachment of No. 45 Squadron RAF, equipped with Fairey III reconnaissance biplanes, in December 1929. The RAF Unit, Kenya, was formally established on 14 December 1935, and on 15 December 1936 a flight of No. 45 Squadron, by then flying Fairey Gordons, was expanded into No. 223 Squadron RAF, which remained until September 1939. During the Second World War the station hosted meteorological flights operating Gloster Gladiators, Boulton Paul Defiants, Hawker Hurricanes, Supermarine Spitfires and Percival Proctors, and after the war it was home to Nos. 21, 30 and 82 Squadrons RAF along with a Communications Flight. Eastleigh served as the primary RAF station for East Africa and, after force reductions in the 1950s, as home to Air Headquarters East Africa. From 1953, No. 1340 Flight RAF, commanded by Squadron Leader Charles G. St. David Jefferies and equipped with Noorduyn Harvard IIB trainers armed with fragmentation bombs and a single Browning .303 machine gun, flew counter-insurgency operations against the Mau Mau rebellion from the base. From 1945 to 1958 Eastleigh doubled as Nairobi's main international civilian airport, used by British Overseas Airways Corporation and East African Airways, until the opening of Embakasi Airport, now Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, in 1958. The airfield's high elevation and short runways, which could not be extended due to the surrounding city, meant that jet fighters and bombers of squadrons such as No. 208 Squadron RAF, flying Hawker Hunters from the late 1950s, had to operate instead from Embakasi. Following Kenyan independence in December 1963, the Kenya Air Force was formed at the base in 1964. After an attempted coup by a group of Kenya Air Force officers on 1 August 1982, the air force was disbanded and placed under army control, and during this period the station was renamed Moi Air Base, after the president the rebels had tried to overthrow; the air force regained its independence in 1994 but the base retained its name.
Moi Air Base remains an active Kenya Air Force installation and serves as the headquarters of the force. It is also the home of the East African School of Aviation, run by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority since its establishment as the DCA training school in 1954, and is used to train Kenyan Air Cadets. As a military facility it does not appear on official civilian maps of Nairobi.
