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
Madrid-Cuatro Vientos is Spain's oldest airport, a general-aviation and military field lying some 8 km southwest of central Madrid. It offers two parallel east-west runways and a long aviation heritage stretching back to 1911, making it a distinctive stop for simulator pilots exploring the Spanish capital's airspace.
Madrid-Cuatro Vientos Airport (ICAO: LECU) is a joint civil and military aerodrome on the southwestern edge of Madrid, operated by Aena. It is the oldest airport in Spain, dating from 1911, and today functions primarily as a base for general aviation, flight training organisations and flying clubs, alongside a separate military apron used by the Spanish armed forces and national police air units. Its long history, compact GA-focused traffic mix and proximity to the city centre make it an interesting and characterful destination for a VFR sortie in the Madrid area.
The airport sits about 8 km (5 nautical miles) southwest of Madrid city centre, in the Comunidad de Madrid. It shares the wider Madrid airspace environment with the region's other airports, Madrid-Barajas and Madrid-Torrejon, of which Cuatro Vientos is one of three civil fields serving the capital. The field has a mixed civil and military character, with the civil apron and military area separated within the same aerodrome boundary.
Cuatro Vientos has two parallel east-west runway pairs. The main runway, 09/27, is 4,870 ft long with a hard paved surface and is lit. Alongside it runs a second, shorter parallel runway, 09L/27R, 3,698 ft long with an unpaved surface, also lit. There is no ILS at the airport.
Ground movements are handled on 121.8 MHz and the tower frequency is 118.7 MHz. The only navigational aid available at the field is a non-directional beacon (NDB); there is no ILS. Given the runway lengths and surrounding built-up area, operations are generally suited to helicopters, piston aircraft, medium turboprops and small business jets rather than larger types.
Cuatro Vientos was established in 1911 and is the oldest airport in Spain. It began as a military airfield before also developing a civil role, and it retains a separate military apron to this day, used among others by Spanish Police aircraft and road-traffic surveillance helicopters. On 31 July 1919 the English aviator James Arthur Peters made the first non-stop flight from the United Kingdom to Spain, flying a Seabird P1 he had designed from Hendon to Cuatro Vientos in nine hours, carrying a letter for the Queen of Spain; he later named his house in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, after the airfield. Emilio Herrera Linares established an aerodynamics laboratory at Cuatro Vientos and, in 1936, tested his pioneering stratonautical space suit there, a precursor of later stratospheric flying suits, before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War cancelled the planned high-altitude balloon trial. In February 1936 the airport was authorised as an alternative to Barajas and began operating as a national airport for all purposes. Civil and military areas were formally delimited in March 1961, and the field officially took the name Madrid-Cuatro Vientos in September 1965, being reclassified in category terms in 1967. At the start of the 1970s the airport had a paved 10/28 runway of 1,200 by 30 metres alongside a parallel compacted-earth runway of 1,650 by 75 metres, and in July 1971 it opened to domestic and international traffic under VFR conditions. The airfield has also seen accidents over the years, including the loss of a Douglas C-53 in September 1976 and a fatal Hispano HA-200D Saeta crash during an aerobatic display by the Fundacion Infante de Orleans in May 2013.
Today Cuatro Vientos is used mainly by general aviation, flight training organisations and flying clubs, operating piston aircraft, helicopters, medium turboprops and small business jets within the constraints of its runway lengths and the surrounding buildings. The Museum of Aeronautics and Astronautics, dedicated largely to the Spanish Air and Space Force, is located on the southern side of the airfield and forms a notable landmark for visiting pilots. The airport continues to sit alongside an active military area on the same site.
