Early stages at
Palos de la Frontera Hot air balloons have been used with military purposes in Spain as far back as 1896. In 1905, with the help of
Alfredo Kindelán,
Leonardo Torres Quevedo directed the construction of the first Spanish
dirigible in the Army Military Aerostatics Service, created in 1896 and located in
Guadalajara. The new airship was completed successfully in 1908 and, named 'Torres Quevedo', made numerous test and exhibition flights. The
Spanish Army's air arm, however, took off formally in 1909 when Colonel
Pedro Vives Vich and Captain Alfredo Kindelán made an official trip to different European cities to check the potential of introducing airships and
airplanes in the Spanish Armed Forces. One year later a Royal decree established the National Aviation School () in
Getafe, near
Madrid, under the
Ministry of Public Works and Transport (). The established institution became militarized under the name when Colonel Pedro Vives was chosen to lead it as director of the , Military Aeronautics, the name of the air arm of the
Spanish Army. Captain Alfredo Kindelán was named Chief of Aviation, . On 17 December 1913, during the war with
Morocco, a Spanish expeditionary squadron of the became the first organized military air unit to see combat during the first systematic bombing in history by dropping
aerial bombs from a
Lohner Flecha (Arrow) airplane on the plain of Ben Karrix in Morocco. During the years that followed, most of the military activity of the Spanish Air Force would take place in Northern Morocco. In 1915 Spain's first seaplane base was opened at
Los Alcázares on the Mar Menor in the Murcia region and Alfredo Kindelán was named Military Aeronautics Director, displacing Pedro Vives. The Catalan Flying School was established in
Can Tunis,
Barcelona the following year and Getafe Aerodrome became a full-fledged military air base. In 1919 General
Francisco Echagüe replaced Kindelán as leader of the . In 1920 two
Nieuport 80 and one
Caudron G.3 were first painted with squadron identification numbers and the Spanish Air Force
roundel. Shortly thereafter the , the air branch of the
Spanish Navy, already established through a Royal decree four years earlier, became functional in
El Prat, in the same location as present-day
Barcelona Airport. In 1921, following the
Spanish defeat at Annual, known as in Spain, the Zeluán Aerodrome was taken over by the
Rif army and another aerodrome was built at
Nador. Lieutenant Colonel Kindelán was named , becoming chief-commander of the air force in 1926, at the time when
Spanish Morocco was retaken and the
Rif War ended. In 1926 a crew of Spanish aviators, that included
Ramón Franco,
Julio Ruiz de Alda,
Juan Manuel Duran and
Pablo Rada, completed the first Trans-Atlantic flight between Spain and South America in January 1926 on the
Plus Ultra. That same year, pilots González Gallarza, Joaquín Loriga Taboada and Rafael Martínez Esteve completed the first flight between Spain and the Philippines, in just one month. The expedition was flown with two
Breguet 19 and known as the or "Elcano Squadron". In 1930 the Aeronaval Base in
San Javier was established and in the same year a pro-Republican revolt in the
Cuatro Vientos military aerodrome near Madrid was quashed. After the proclamation of the
Second Spanish Republic in 1931, General
Luis Lombarte Serrano replaced Kindelán as chief-commander of the air force, but he would be quickly succeeded by Commander
Ramón Franco, younger brother of later dictator
Francisco Franco. Captain
Cipriano Rodríguez Díaz and Lieutenant
Carlos de Haya González flew non-stop to
Equatorial Guinea, then a Spanish colonial outpost. Under Capitan Warlela
cadastral surveys of Spain were carried out using modern methods of
aerial photography in 1933. The following year Spanish engineer
Juan de la Cierva took off and landed on
seaplane carrier Dédalo with his
autogyro C-30P. In 1934 Commander
Eduardo Sáenz de Buruaga became new chief-commander of the air force. Following a Government decree dated 2d October 1935, the Dirección General de Aeronáutica was placed under the authority of the War Ministry, , instead of under the , following which in 1936 the Air Force regional units became restructured. Accordingly, the
Spanish Navy-based model was replaced by divisions which are still operative today.
Air warfare in the Spanish Civil War After the military rebellion that triggered the
Spanish Civil War, Spanish military aviation was divided into the Air Force of the
Spanish republican government and the
National Aviation (), established by the rebel army. autogyro In July 1936, right after the coup, the first German
Junkers Ju 52 and Italian
Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 arrived to help the rebels and the
Fiat CR.32 fighters began operating in the
Córdoba front. In August
Heinkel He 51 fighters were also deployed. These planes helped the rebel army to gain full control of the air, as did the German and Italian expeditionary forces, the
Condor Legion and the
Aviazione Legionaria. At first, the Spanish Republican Air Force had the control of great swathes of Spanish territory using a motley selection of planes, but the unwavering help received by
Francisco Franco from
Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy reversed the situation. In September 1936 the Navy and Air Ministry, , and the Air Undersecretariat, were established under the command of
Indalecio Prieto as minister. The first serious air combat took place over Madrid when Italian bombers attacked the city in a massive bombing operation. The Republican tricolor roundel was replaced by red bands for identification purposes, an insignia that had previously been used on
Aeronáutica Naval aircraft during the monarchy in the 1920s, before the time of the Republic. Many innovative, and often lethal, aeronautical bombing techniques were tested by Germany's Condor Legion forces on Spanish soil against the areas that remained loyal to the Republican Government with the permission of Generalísimo Franco. Nazi help to the Nationalist Air Force was part of Hitler's
German rearmament strategy and the techniques that German Nazi pilots learned in Spain would later be used in
World War II. Despite the devastation and the human casualties caused by the
bombing of the
Basque city of
Guernica in 1937, known by the
Luftwaffe as
Operation Rügen, Hitler insisted that his longterm designs in Spain were peaceful. He called his strategy "Blumenkrieg" (Flower War), as evidenced in a January 1937 speech. The international outcry over Guernica, however, would not bring about any increase in the military help provided to the beleaguered Spanish Republic. The pilots of the Spanish Republican Air Force, often young and poorly trained were unable to check the Nazi German and Fascist Italian modern-warfare attacks. Despite Franco's claim that both air forces were equal, and despite the help of foreign pilots, Spanish Republican planes were mostly obsolete and often in a bad state of disrepair. Even after acquiring more planes from the Soviet Union in the mid-stages of the war, the Spanish Republican Air Force was no longer able to control the Spanish skies nor match the power of the German and Italian expeditionary forces in specific combat situations. The Spanish Republican Air Force became practically irrelevant after the
Battle of the Ebro in 1938 when the root of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces was broken. Finally it was completely disbanded after the victory on April 1, 1939.
Post-Civil War era "Saeta" (Bolt) The present Spanish Air Force (, or EdA) was officially established on 7 October 1939, after the end of the
Spanish Civil War. The EdA was a successor to the Nationalist and Republican Air Forces.
Spanish Republican colors disappeared and the black roundel of the planes was replaced by a yellow and red roundel. However, the black and white
Saint Andrew's Cross ()
fin flash, the tail insignia of Franco's air force, as well as of the
Aviazione Legionaria of
Fascist Italy and the
Condor Legion of
Nazi Germany, is still in use in the present-day Spanish Air Force. After the changes introduced at the beginning of Franco's regime the Air Regions and their Command centres were the following: • 1st Air Region. Central. • 2nd Air Region. Straits. • 3rd Air Region. East. • 4th Air Region. Pyrenees. • 5th Air Region. Atlantic. • Balearic Islands Air Zone • Morocco Air Zone • Canary Islands and West Africa Air Zone of the Spanish Air Force The
Blue Squadron () was an air unit that fought alongside the
Axis powers at the time of the Blue Division,
Division Azul Spanish volunteer
formation in
World War II. The operated with the Luftwaffe on the
Eastern Front and took part in the
battle of Kursk. This squadron was the ""/
JG 27 Afrika of the
VIII Fliegerkorps,
Luftflotte 2. During the first years after World War II the Spanish Francoist Air Force consisted largely of German and Italian planes and copies of them. An interesting example was the
HA-1112-M1L Buchón (
Pouter), this was essentially a licensed production of the
Messerschmitt Bf 109 re-engined with a
Rolls-Royce Merlin 500-45 for use in Spain. In March 1946 the first Spanish military paratroop unit, the , was established in
Alcalá de Henares. It first saw action in the
Ifni War during 1957 and 1958. Because of US Government objection to use airplanes manufactured in the US in her colonial struggles after World War II, Spain used at first old German aircraft, such as the T-2 (Junkers 52, nicknamed "Pava"), the B-2I (Heinkel 111, nicknamed "Pedro"), the
C-4K (Spanish version of the Bf 109, nicknamed "Buchón"), and some others. Still,
Grumman Albatross seaplanes and
Sikorsky H-19B helicopters were used in rescue operations. This is why still now in present times, EdA maintains a policy of having jet fighters from two different origins, one first line fighter of North American origin, and one from French-European origin (
F-4C Phantom /
Mirage F1,
Mirage III;
EF-18A /
Eurofighter Typhoon). Although in sheer numbers the EdA was impressive, at the end of World War II technically it had become more or less obsolete due to the progress in aviation technology during the war. For budget reasons Spain actually kept many of the old German aircraft operative well into the 1950s and 1960s. As an example the last
Junkers Ju 52 used to operate in Escuadrón 721 training
parachutists from
Alcantarilla Air Base near
Murcia, until well into the 1970s. The CASA 352 and the CASA 352L were developments built by
CASA in the 1950s. Links were established in the 1950s with the United States. Spain received its first jets, like the
F-86 Sabre and
Lockheed T-33 together with training and transport planes like the
T-6 Texan,
C-47 and
C-54, and the
Beechcraft T-34 Mentor. The first series of American jets was replaced in the 1960s by newer fighters like the
F-104 Starfighter,
F-4C Phantom and
F-5 Freedom Fighter Present times After the death of dictator Franco in 1975 and the ensuing
Spanish transition to democracy years, the organization and equipment of the Spanish Air Force was again modernised to prepare for
Spain's membership of
NATO in 1982. Planes like the
Mirage III and
Mirage F1 were bought from
France and became the backbone of the Air Force during the 1970s and part of the 1980s. French fighters formed the air force's mainstay until the arrival of the American
F/A-18. Spanish F/A-18s participated in the
Bosnian War and the
Kosovo War under
NATO command, based in
Aviano,
Italy. Assisted by
USAF F-16s, Spanish Air Force
EF-18As dropped
laser-guided bombs on
Bosnian Serb ammunition depots at
Pale, on
25 and 26 May 1994. taking off and banking to the left in 2015 The Spanish Air and Space Force is replacing older aircraft in the inventory with newer ones including
Eurofighter Typhoon and the recently introduced
Airbus A400M Atlas airlifter. Both are manufactured with Spanish participation;
EADS CASA makes the Eurofighter's right wing and leading edge slats, and participates in the testing and assembly of the airlifter. Unlike the air forces of most major
NATO member states, the Spanish Air and Space Force currently
do not operate any
AEW&C aircraft. Its aerobatic display team is the
Patrulla Aguila, which flies the
CASA C-101 Aviojet. Its helicopter display team,
Patrulla Aspa, flies the
Eurocopter EC-120 Colibrí. In July 2014 the Spanish Air Force joined the
European Air Transport Command, headquartered at
Eindhoven Airbase in the
Netherlands. The
Spanish Government announced in June 2022 that the Spanish Air Force would be renamed as the Spanish Air and Space Force. On January 9, 2024, the Space Command was formally established. == Organization ==