The school was initially established in 1968 as Basa Air Base Community College (BABCC) under
AFP Regulation G.168-342 issued by the
Armed Forces of the Philippines dated April 1968 under the
Department of National Defense to address the problem plaguing the 5th Fighter Wing of the
Philippine Air Force stationed at Basa Air Base,
Floridablanca,
Pampanga. The children and personnel then stationed in Basa could not pursue secondary and tertiary education as the nearest school offering them were located in
Guagua, Pampanga, and Basa was still in the midst of an insurgency. In 1977, the college established an annex in
Nichols Air Base (currently Villamor Air Base) in Pasay known as BABC-Annex using the classroom of the
Pasay City South High School for afternoon and evening classes. In the same year, a satellite campus was established in
Fernando Air Base in
Lipa, Batangas. Also in the same year, President
Ferdinand E. Marcos signed
Presidential Decree No. 1078 converting Basa Air Base Community College to Philippine Air Force College of Aeronautics (PAFCA) with its main campus at Villamor Air Base, Pasay, Metro Manila. Although with state college status, its charter did not provide for government subsidy as it was considered as a non-profit and non-stock educational institution. It was envisioned by Philippine Air Force authorities to be the Philippine Air Force Academy to solve its problem in the procurement and training of its officer pilots through the merging of the Philippine Air Force Flying School and the Philippine Air Force Regular Officer Procurement Program. In 1979, another satellite campus was established in Mactan Benito Ebuen Air Base Campus in
Lapulapu City in
Mactan,
Cebu. On June 3, 1992,
House Bill 26650 was signed into law as
Republic Act. No. 7605 by then President
Corazon C. Aquino converting Philippine Air Force College of Aeronautics into a state college known as the Philippine State College of Aeronautics (PhilSCA; ; ) In 1994, its Board of Trustees approved the creation of its own flight school that will train students for private pilot and commercial pilot. In 1997, it acquired its first trainer plane - a
SOCATA TB-9C Tampico aircraft (RP-2200) which was donated by Senator
Raul Roco from his country-wide development fund and another Tampico aircraft (RP-2204) was purchased for P10 million from PhilSCA Development Fund on June 3, 1992. In 2009, Dr. Enerico M. Sampang was dismissed as College President of the Philippine State College of Aeronautics by the Office of the Ombudsman and immediately replaced by Atty. Carmelita Yadao-Sison,
CHED Deputy Executive Director as an OIC (Office in Charge) of the Philippine State College of Aeronautics. June 1, 2010, Dr. Bernard R. Ramirez, former Vice-President for Administration and Finance, was appointed as the new and 5th College President of the Philippine State College of Aeronautics replacing Atty. Carmelita Yadao-Sison as an OIC. On July 8, 2010, the college was transferred from its original location at Manlunas St. Villamor Air Base, Pasay (currently
Newport City) to its new site at Piccio Garden, Villamor, Pasay (in front of
South Luzon Expressway Sales Exit) On December 15, 2011, the PhilSCA-BAB campus made a groundbreaking ceremony of the newly donated lot for the relocation of the said campus at the Resettlement Area, in
Floridablanca, Pampanga. When the said campus relocated to the new site, it was no longer BAB Campus, it became Basa-Palmayo Campus. In 2012, PhilSCA was awarded by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) as the Number 1 Aeronautical School in the Country as it gained high percentage of board passers and for being Top 1 in the PRC Aeronautical Engineering Board Examination for almost 7 years in a row from 2004 until October 2012. In June 2014, Governor
Lilia Pineda inaugurated the new constructed two-storey building of the PhilSCA Basa-Palmayo campus funded by the local government of Pampanga through the approval of the Provincial Board Members. The National Aviation Academy of the Philippines Act was passed by the Senate of the Philippines as Senate Bill No. 2969 on June 9, 2025, adopted by the House of Representatives as an amendment to House Bill No. 10403 on June 10, 2025 and was signed into law as Republic Act No. 12255 on September 5, 2025 by President
Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. declaring the Philippine State College of Aeronautics as the national professional institution for aviation and therefore renaming it as the National Aviation Academy of the Philippines (NAAP)..
Former names • Basa Air Base Community College (June 1969 – January 26, 1977) • Philippine Air Force College of Aeronautics (January 26, 1977 – June 3, 1992) • Philippine State College of Aeronautics (June 3, 1992 – September 5, 2025) == Campuses ==