Transform Your Flight Sim Experience
with In-Depth Tracking & Analysis
Track every flight, analyse your performance,
and master your flying skills with My FS Flights
Get 10 flights free every month!
Tracked and analysed flights over miles
Hill Air Force Base (KHIF) is a major active-duty United States Air Force installation in Davis County, Utah, just south of Ogden and about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City. Home to the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings flying the F-35A, and to the Ogden Air Logistics Complex, it is a strictly military field with a single very long runway and full instrument approach capability, of interest to the simulator pilot chiefly as a striking piece of Utah's military aviation landscape rather than as a field open to casual civil traffic.
Hill Air Force Base sits in northern Utah between Ogden and Salt Lake City, and is one of the US Air Force's largest installations by both population and land area. It is the host base of the Air Force Materiel Command's 75th Air Base Wing, which supports the Ogden Air Logistics Complex, as well as operational fighter units of Air Combat Command and Air Force Reserve Command, most notably the F-35A-equipped 388th Fighter Wing. For a flight simulation pilot the base is notable for its 13,500-foot runway carved into the shadow of the Wasatch Range, its dense fast-jet traffic, and its long institutional history as a depot and maintenance hub stretching back to before the Second World War.
Hill AFB lies in Davis County, Utah, bordering the cities of Layton, Clearfield, Riverdale, Roy and Sunset, with its largest boundary adjoining Clearfield and Layton, and sits just south of Ogden and roughly 30 miles (48 km) north of Salt Lake City. The field is tagged as lying within Class B airspace and is a military airfield; as an active fighter and logistics base it is not a routine VFR destination for civil traffic, and any flight to or from the field would need to be planned around its controlled, military status.
The base has a single physical runway, 14/32, oriented northwest-southeast. It is 13,493 feet long with a hard surface, and is lit for night operations. An instrument landing system serves the approach to runway 14. Field elevation is 4,780 feet.
Air traffic services are provided partly by Salt Lake City Approach and Departure, with approach frequencies of 25.787 MHz, 31.925 MHz and 121.1 MHz, and departure on 121.1 MHz. The base tower operates on 127.15 MHz, ground on 121.6 MHz, and clearance delivery on 124.1 MHz. ATIS broadcasts on 134.925 MHz. Additional military frequencies published for the field include an operations channel on 25.21 MHz (419 OPS), a PMSV/weather channel on 34.23 MHz, a command post frequency of 38.13 MHz, and a PTD frequency of 139.3 MHz.
Hill Air Force Base traces its origins to the US Army's Air Mail crisis of 1934, which prompted the search for a permanent air depot site in the Salt Lake City area; the present site near Ogden was chosen as the clear favourite after a regional survey. In July 1939 Congress appropriated 8 million dollars for construction of the Ogden Air Depot, and the site was named Hill Field in December of that year in honour of Major Ployer Peter Hill, Chief of the Flying Branch of the Army Air Corps Materiel Division at Wright Field, who had died from injuries sustained in the 1935 crash of the Boeing Model 299, prototype of the B-17 Flying Fortress. Groundbreaking took place on 12 January 1940, and the base's first commander, Colonel Morris Berman, arrived on 7 November 1940, marking the start of official operations. During the Second World War, Hill Field became a round-the-clock maintenance and supply base, overhauling battle-damaged aircraft including the A-26, B-17, B-24, B-29, P-40, P-47 and P-61, with peak wartime employment reaching just over 22,000 military and civilian personnel in 1943. From 1944 the field was also used for long-term storage of surplus aircraft such as retired P-40s, and later B-24s and B-29s, through the 1940s and 1950s. Following the creation of the United States Air Force, Hill Field was redesignated Hill Air Force Base on 5 February 1948. During the Korean War it handled a major share of the Air Materiel Command's logistical effort, returning stored aircraft to active service. In the 1960s the base took on maintenance of jet types including the F-4 Phantom II during the Vietnam War, and later the F-16 Fighting Falcon, A-10 Thunderbolt II and C-130 Hercules, work that continues in various forms today. Renovation of the historic barrel-vaulted Hangar 225 began in late 2018.
Hill AFB remains a major active US Air Force base, described as the sixth-largest employer in Utah as of 2018, and among the Air Force's largest bases by population and size. It hosts the 75th Air Base Wing as the host unit supporting the Ogden Air Logistics Complex, part of the Air Force Sustainment Command, alongside operational fighter wings including the F-35A-equipped 388th Fighter Wing and the Air Force Reserve's 419th Fighter Wing. As an active military installation, access is restricted to authorised military and government traffic, and prior permission would be required for any visiting aircraft.
