Taszár Air Base
Taszár Air Base | |||||||||||
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AMSL 156 m / 512 ft | | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 46°23′36″N 017°55′06″E / 46.39333°N 17.91833°E | ||||||||||
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Runways | |||||||||||
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Source: HungaryAirport.hu[1] |
Taszár Air Base (ICAO: LHTA) is a military air base located near Taszár, Somogy County, Hungary. It is 10 kilometres (5 NM) east of Kaposvár.[1]
It became the primary staging post for peacekeeping forces coming and going into the Balkans in December of 1995 becoming NATO's first military base in former Warsaw Pact territory. During two years of Operations Joint Endeavor and Joint Guard, Taszar can claim Europe's largest airlift mission since World War II. Normally, three or four C-130s make daily two-hour hops to Taszar from Ramstein AB, Germany. But during rotation surges, activity jumps to 20 aircraft - including jumbo commercial charters - that deliver some 4,000 US replacement peacekeepers.
In 1999 the airbase was used by the
It was reportedly 'mothballed' in 2001,[2] but the United States then used it to train the Free Iraqi Forces before March 2003. Then Major General David Barno said the training programme had been ended, with the departure of the second group of Free Iraqi Forces, on April 1, 2003.[3]
As of April 2011[update], it is reported "disused".[4]
Facilities
The air base is at an
References
- ^ a b c LHTA - Taszár
- ^ "Old Hungarian airbase seeks new owner, all offers considered | Politics.hu". www.politics.hu. Archived from the original on 2015-04-18.
- ^ "Second Group of Free Iraqi Forces Deploys as Training Program is Suspended in Taszar, Hungary".
- ^ "HungaryAirport.hu".
- David Oliver (ed.), 'East European Air Power,' No.3 in the AFM Airpower Series, Air Forces Monthly/Key Publishing, 1991(?)
External links
- Eastern Wings, 31st Kapos Tactical Fighter Regiment - Taszar, 1996
- Accident history for LHTA at Aviation Safety Network
- Airport information for LHTA at Great Circle Mapper.
- https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/taszar.htm