Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Joint Base Andrews sits at Camp Springs, Maryland, just southeast of Washington, D.C., and is best known worldwide as the home of the aircraft that carry the call sign Air Force One when the President is aboard. A major USAF joint installation with two long runways and full ILS coverage, it operates within controlled Class B airspace under Potomac Approach and its own tower, and access for civil pilots is tightly restricted.
Joint Base Andrews (KADW) is a United States military facility at Camp Springs, Maryland, in Prince George's County, just outside Washington, D.C. It is operated by the United States Air Force under the 316th Wing, Air Force District of Washington, and is home to the reserve 459th Air Refueling Wing, the Air National Guard's 113th Wing and the active-duty 89th Airlift Wing. The base is widely known as the home station of the Boeing VC-25 aircraft that fly under the call sign Air Force One when the President is on board, making it one of the most recognisable military airfields in the world to any pilot studying the Washington, D.C. area.
Joint Base Andrews lies within Class B airspace in the congested Washington, D.C. area, close to the nation's capital. It is a military installation rather than a civil aerodrome, and its airspace and surrounding restrictions are bound up with the wider air defence and security arrangements of the National Capital Region.
Joint Base Andrews has two parallel hard-surfaced runways. Runway 01L/19R is 10,298 ft long, lit, and equipped with ILS. Runway 01R/19L is 9,733 ft long, lit, and also equipped with ILS. The field elevation is 262 ft.
Radio services at Joint Base Andrews include Potomac Approach on 119.3 MHz and Potomac Departure on 125.65 MHz, Tower on 118.4 MHz, Ground on 121.8 MHz, ATIS on 113.1 MHz, and Clearance Delivery on 127.55 MHz. Additional frequencies published for the field include Operations (AFRC Ops) on 143.8 MHz, Command Post on 141.55 MHz, PTD on 139.3 MHz, and PMSV (Metro) on 34.46 MHz. Both runways are served by ILS approaches.
The site's military use dates back to the Civil War, when Union forces occupied a small country church, later known as Chapel Two, as a headquarters for troops camped nearby. The modern airfield began in August 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the acquisition of land for a military airfield at the site, with construction starting that year. The first permanent unit, the 463rd Base Headquarters and Air Base Squadron, arrived on 19 April 1943, and Camp Springs Army Air Field became operational on 2 May 1943 with the arrival of the first Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. The base was renamed Andrews Field on 2 May 1945 in honour of Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews, and became Andrews Air Force Base shortly after the Air Force became a separate service in 1947. In the postwar years it served as headquarters for Continental Air Command, Strategic Air Command and the Military Air Transport Service, and was headquarters to the Air Research and Development Command and its successor, the Air Force Systems Command, from 1950 to 1992. Andrews became closely associated with special air missions carrying senior government and military leaders: President Harry S. Truman flew the first presidential flight from the base on 24 November 1946, and the port of entry and departure for dignitaries moved there in 1959. President John F. Kennedy's official aircraft transferred permanently from Washington National in March 1962, cementing Andrews' status as the Home of Air Force One. From 1958, naval air activities were also moved to Andrews from the increasingly congested Naval Air Station Anacostia, with the transfer completed by December 1961, and Navy and Marine Corps Reserve squadrons operated a variety of aircraft types from the base through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s. In 2005, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended realigning Naval Air Facility Washington's installation management functions into Andrews, leading to the creation of Joint Base Andrews-Naval Air Facility Washington on 1 October 2009, formally merging Andrews Air Force Base and Naval Air Facility Washington.
Joint Base Andrews remains an active USAF installation hosting the 316th Wing as host unit, alongside the 459th Air Refueling Wing, the Air National Guard's 113th Wing and the 89th Airlift Wing, the latter operating the VC-25 aircraft used as Air Force One. As a secure military joint base, it is not a general civil aviation airfield, and any flying activity there requires prior permission and clearance through military channels rather than routine civilian booking.
