When was the Air Force base at Aviano established?
1784580#6
Aviano Air Base was established by Italy in 1911. The base was among the first ones available to Italian aviation.
Aviano
1658437#3
Aviano Air Base was established by the Italian government in 1911, and was used as training base for Italian pilots and construction facility for aircraft parts. During World War I, Italy used the airfield in missions against the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. At that time, two Italian aviators, Captain Maurizio Pagliano and Lieutenant Luigi Gori, conducted an unauthorized, but heroic and successful, air raid on the Austrian naval yards in Pula, in what is now Croatia. In their honor, the base's name was officially changed to "Aeroporto Pagliano e Gori," in 1919. During the war the airfield was also overrun by the Austro-German army in the months between November 1917 to November 1918. Between the two wars the airfield was again used as a training base.
Aviano Air Base
17329097#14
Members of the 81st again deployed to Aviano Air Base in October 1998, supporting NATO air presence during the crisis in Kosovo, Yugoslavia. The 81st FS returned to Aviano Air Base in January 1999 for a regular contingency rotation, but then stayed to support Operation Allied Force. The squadron supported air operations from Aviano Air Base until 11 April 1999, when it moved to Gioia del Colle, Italy. From there, the unit flew more than 1,400 combat missions throughout Operation Allied Force and led the first large force packages in A-10 history. The 81st also led the first two successful combat search and rescue task force missions, which involved coordinating all rescue assets resulting in the rescue of downed F-117 and F-16 pilots.
81st Fighter Squadron
1784580#7
There has been an American presence at Aviano Air Base since the end of World War II. In 1954 the Italian and American governments signed a joint use agreement and by 1955, HQ United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) had moved its Italian operations from Udine to Aviano. The base went through a period of hosting rotational fighter squadrons. With the declining use of the Italian live fire range, the rotational squadrons became a thing of the past. Aviano became a war reserve material storage base and played a big part in Desert Storm. In 1992, HQ 16th Air Force and the 401st Fighter Wing moved from Torrejon Air Base, Spain to Aviano. The Wing became home to two F-16 fighter squadrons, the 510th FS and the 555th FS. Both squadrons relocated from Ramstein AB in 1994 and redesignated. The wing was redesignated from the 401st Fighter Wing to the 31st Fighter Wing in 1994 as Aviano took on permanently based aircraft for the first time in over 50 years. The base currently performs a NATO mission with close coordination with Italian personnel.
Aviano
1658437#29
On November 4, 2009, the conviction by an Italian court of 22 CIA agents, a U.S. Air Force colonel and two Italian SISMI secret agents confirmed the role of the Aviano Air Base in the kidnapping, on February 17, 2003, of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, in the so-called "extraordinary rendition" program. The man, abducted in Milan by CIA agents, was taken to Aviano Air Base for interrogation before being transported via Ramstein Air Base (Germany) to Alexandria, Egypt, and turned over to the custody of Egypt's State Security Intelligence.
Some of this text in an early version of this article was taken from pages on the Aviano Air Base website, which as a work of the U.S. Government is presumed to be a public domain resource. That information was supplemented by:
Aviano Air Base
17907718#12
On 1 April 1994, the unit was reactivated and reassigned to U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE)) and NATO and stationed at Aviano Air Base, Italy, absorbing the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and equipment of the inactivated 526th Fighter Squadron, which had been inactivated at Ramstein Air Base, Germany when the 86 FW became an airlift wing (86 AW) following the inactivation of the 435th Airlift Wing and the downsizing of its former installation, Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany. At Aviano, the squadron returned to its previous mission as an operational combat fighter squadron.
555th Fighter Squadron
1658437#13
To avoid losing the wing’s heritage and history as the highest scoring Army Air Force unit in the Mediterranean Theater in WWII, the impressive combat record in Vietnam and number of significant firsts they produced in the early years of the Air Force, the 31 FW was chosen to move rather than fade into obscurity. On April 1, 1994, the 31st Fighter Wing inactivated at Homestead AFB and subsequently activated at Aviano Air Base, Italy in place of the 401st Fighter Wing.
Aviano Air Base
1658437#16
In 1999, U.S. Air Forces in Europe activated the 31st Air Expeditionary Wing-NOBLE ANVIL at Aviano for Operation Allied Force, the NATO operation to stop Serbian atrocities in the Province of Kosovo, which was not authorized by the UN Security Council. Assigned under a joint task force, the 31st AEW, flew from Aviano and joined NATO allies in a 78-day air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia). From March 24 to June 10, 1999, the 31st AEW, the largest expeditionary wing in Air Force history flew nearly 9,000 combat sorties and accumulated almost 40,000 hours of combat service over the skies of Kosovo, Serbia and the rest of the Balkans in support of NATO operations. The wing accomplished much during OAF as the two permanently assigned flying squadrons, the 510th and 555th, flew more than 2,400 combined sorties and more than 10,000 combat hours.
Aviano Air Base
1658437#21
The wing’s support of Operation Iraqi Freedom began in late 2003. Aviano served as the launch point for airborne/air-land insertion of airborne forces opening a second front in northern Iraq. During that time, the wing secured, bedded and fed more than 2,300 Army and Air Force personnel. The operation, the largest airborne operation since 1989, constituted 62 missions, transporting 2,146 passengers and 2,433.7 tons of cargo.
Aviano Air Base
9405195#2
On 1 July 1995, United States Air Forces Europe activated the 7490th Wing (Provisional) at Aviano Air Base, Italy to control units deployed temporarily on the base in connection with Operation Deny Flight. The wing was replaced on 11 March 1996 by the 4190th Wing (Provisional) when the United States Air Force (USAF) began numbering provisional units based on the theater exercising operational control, rather than the Major Command to which they were assigned. The 4190th wing participated in Operation Deny Flight and Operation Joint Endeavour.
16th Air Expeditionary Wing
17892971#8
The 510th was inactivated in April 1994 and reactivated at Aviano Air Base, Italy on 1 July 1994 as the 510th Fighter Squadron absorbing the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft and equipment of the inactivated 512th Fighter Squadron, which had been inactivated at Ramstein Air Base, Germany when the 86th FW became an airlift wing (86th AW). At Aviano, the squadron returned to its previous mission as an operational combat fighter squadron. The 510th, during Operation Deliberate Force, was the first F-16 Block 40 squadron to drop a laser-guided bomb.
510th Fighter Squadron