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The 4th Centre for Combat Employment and Retraining of Personnel VVS of the Russian Air Force is a research, training, and instructional centre. It was formed in Tambov on 19 April 1953. In 1954 have been transferred to Voronezh and 1960 to the Lipetsk air base, and then was transformed into the 4th center deployment and retraining flight personnel of the Air Force. It was part of the Air Forces of the Moscow Military District for decades.
The training department of the center during the Soviet period trained over 45,000 officers of various specialties. Eleven Soviet cosmonauts retrained on new types of aircraft at the base. As a symbol of the glorious history of aviation in Lipetsk, in August 1969 an Aviators' Square was erected with a monument of an upward-pointed MiG-19.
From 1960 to 1990 the centre directed three research-instructor aviation regiments, the 91st, 455th, and 760th. The 91st and 760th were at Lipetsk while the 455th was at Voronezh. The 91st and 760th were disbanded in 1992 and the 455th Research-Instructor Mixed Aviation Regiment was retitled the 455th Bomber Aviation Regiment and resubordinated to the 105th Mixed Aviation Division. In their place the 968th Fighter Aviation Regiment returned from Falkenberg in East Germany in 1992 and was converted in 1993 into a Research-Instructor Fighter Aviation Regiment, later a Research-Instructor Mixed Aviation Regiment.
After the collapse of the USSR the military-industrial complex deteriorated, the budget of the armed forces is significantly reduced and, as a consequence, for the Lipetsk Air Base is a difficult time. Only in 2003 started a change for the better: the fuel limits increased, it began to strengthen the material base.
In July 2003, on the 300th anniversary of Lipetsk and was held an airshow of a hour and a half. This event has arrived on a visit delegation of French military pilots, headed by General Jean Romuald Robert. The delegation arrived on two C-130 military transport planes, three "Mirage" fighter/attack aircraft.
On 22 April 2004 the Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Italian Silvio Berlusconi visited the centre, arrived in Lipetsk on opening the Italian company Ariston. It has been demonstrated in action aviation technology, showing aerobatics, including the most complex, with the personal participation of the chief of the center Alexander Kharchevsky.
On 5 September 2006 for the first time a delegation of 32 member states OSCE visited the air base.
3 August 2007 and with the newest Russian fighter-bomber Su-34 test airfield Novosibirsk Aviation Industrial Association flew. Under the control of the pilots Sergei Shcherbina and Alexander Aschenkova the plane arrived in Lipetsk Air Base, where he was solemnly adopted and made atonement for the Air Force.
Bombers Su-24 and Su-34 Lipetsk PPI and PLC participated in the 2008 Moscow Victory Day Parade. Su-34 managed personally the chief aviation center Major General Alexander Kharchevsky.
19 June 2008 marked the 55th anniversary of the founding of Lipetsk Air Base.
In 2011, the military prosecutor's office of the Western Military District opened a criminal investigation into the extortion of money from Lipetsk Air Base airmen. According to "Interfax", the reason for this was the information contained in the Internet-address lieutenant Igor Sulim, which found its confirmation in the audit. Defendants in the case, initiated on the 286th article Criminal Code of Russia ( "exceeding official authority") began Commander military unit, Colonel Edward Kowalski and his deputy on educational work, Colonel Sergei Sidorenko. After 3 years of the trial, they were convicted and sentenced to deprivation of liberty for a term of 4 and 5 years probation and ordered to pay compensation to the victims.
In 2013 lёtnym aviation center staff began development of super-maneuverable multi-role fighters Su-30cm; fighter development began in 2014. Su-35S.
In 2014, the aviation center airfield was used as the base airfield at the time of the flight crews of the Air Force and Navy aviation competition "Aviadarts".
In August 2015 the chief aviation center, Major-General Alexander Kharchevsky resigned; was replaced by Hero of the Russian Federation Major General Sergey Cobîlaş.