Dutch East Indies ,
governor-general of the Netherlands Indies, to Kalijati in 1922 The
Proefvliegafdeling-KNIL (PVA-KNIL), an aircraft testing unit within the
Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and the precursor to the ML-KNIL, was created on 30 May 1914. One of the first aircraft type used by the KNIL was the
Glenn Martin TA hydroplane, which was based at a seaplane base in
Tanjung Priok,
Batavia. Due to the wooden construction of the aircraft, it was thought that the seawater might impact the aircraft's flying performance, and so the PVA was looking to construct a land-based aerodrome. A patch of forest near Kalijati, located 100 km east of Batavia and 50 km north of Bandung, was chosen due to its flat topography. His second flight was on 14 February. Also onboard the aircraft was
Luitenant-generaal Johan Pieter Michielsen, the commander of the colonial army. The flight ended in a crash, killing Michielsen, with Ter Poorten suffering injury in the head. The PVA-KNIL would later stationed some of its converted Glenn Martin TA hydroplanes at Kalijati. In March 1917, the PVA-KNIL received eight
Wright-Martin Model R recon aircraft and four
Glenn Martin TT training aircraft and stationed them in Kalijati, Kalijati Airfield was inactivated for some time due to budget cuts caused by the
Great Depression in the 1920s. In the mid-1930s, the
3e Vliegtuig Afdeling, a squadron equipped with the obsolete
Curtiss P-6 Hawk, was stationed at Kalijati. At the same time, some of the ML-KNIL's new
Martin 139 bomber fleet was stationed at Kalijati due to overcapacity at the
Andir Airfield in Bandung. On 16 June 1971, the Agricultural Air Unit (
Satuan Udara Pertanian) of the Indonesian Air Force was created to help with domestic agricultural pest control, with Kalijati as its home base. The unit was first equipped with
LIPNUR Gelatik, and later was supplanted with
Cessna 188 and
Pilatus PC-6 Porter. In 1989, the 7th Air Squadron, a helicopter training squadron consisted of
Bell 47G Soloy,
Hughes 500 and
Bell 204, was gradually transferred from
Atang Sendjaja Air Force Base in three waves, starting on 17 April 1989. Kalijati was officially made the home base of 7th Air Squadron on 1 January 1991. As those helicopters were retired, the squadron currently (as of 2024) only operated
Eurocopter EC120 Colibri. Kalijati Air Force Base was officially renamed to Suryadarma Air Force Base on 7 September 2001, in honor of the first Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Air Force, Air Chief Marshall
Soerjadi Soerjadarma. ==References==