Taszár Air Base is a military

air base An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

located near Taszár,

Somogy County Somogy ( hu, Somogy megye, ; hr, Šomođska županija; sl, Šomodska županija, german: Komitat Schomodei) is an administrative county (comitatus or ''megye'') in present Hungary, and also in the former Kingdom of Hungary. Somogy County lies ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. It is east of

Kaposvár Kaposvár (; also known by other alternative names) is a city with county rights in the southwestern part of Hungary, south of Lake Balaton. It is one of the leading cities of Transdanubia, the capital of Somogy County, and the seat of the Kapo ...

. 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

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

as a base for aircraft supporting

Operation Allied Force The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

. During

Operation Joint Forge The Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR) was a NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Bosnian war. Although SFOR was led by NATO, several non-NATO countries contributed troops. I ...

(1998-2004) the National Support Element (NSE) of the U.S. Army (consisting of approximately 250 U.S. Army personnel) was located at the airbase. In late 2000 the NSE's designation was changed to United States Army Support Element Tasar (USASET). It was reportedly 'mothballed' in 2001, 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. , it is reported "disused".

Facilities

The air base is at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

designated 16/34 with a

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

surface measuring .

References

*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 * * * https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/taszar.htm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taszar Air Base Buildings and structures in Somogy County Military airbases of Hungary Military installations of the United States in Hungary Military installations closed in 2004