Airport type Military Elevation AMSL 636 ft / 194 m | 9,842 3,000 Elevation 194 m | |
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Lipetsk Air Base (also given as Lipetskiy, Lipetsky, Shakhm 10, and Lipetsk West) is an air base in Lipetsk Oblast, Russia located 12 km northwest of Lipetsk. It is the combat training center of Russian Air Force, analogous to the U.S. Air Force's Nellis Air Force Base. The base is made up of two medium-sized airfields joined together.
In 1925, the Soviet government allowed Germany to open an air combat school at Lipetsk. That permitted Germany to evade treaty restrictions on the development of military aviation, while the Soviet Air Forces received technical advice and access to test results. By 1933, the Soviets concluded that the arrangement was not worthwhile, and the new German government agreed (for different reasons). The school was closed.
The 4th Center of Combat Application and Conversion of Frontline Aviation, Russia's Top Gun school since around the 1960s, is the most well known unit on the base. Its chief, Col. Kharchevski, became famous after air combat exercises in the USA and has become the personal pilot of President Putin.
From the 1960s to 1990, units stationed at Lipetsk include:
In 1992, the 968th Fighter Aviation Regiment arrived from Falkenberg in East Germany. It was flying MiG-23 and MiG-29 aircraft in the mid-1990s. In 1992-1993 it became first a Research-Instructor Fighter Aviation Regiment and then a Research-Instructor Mixed Aviation Regiment. Flying solely MiG-29s by 2004, it later also flew Su-24M aircraft.