Decimomannu Air Base is an Italian Air Force

Italian Air Force

The Italian Air Force has gone under different names in different periods:*Regia Aeronautica , from 1923 to June 1946*Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, the air force of Italian Social Republic during World War II...

 (Aeronautica Militare) air force base located approximately 5 km (5,000,000,000,000 nm) north of Decimomannu

Decimomannu

Decimomannu is a comune in the Province of Cagliari in the Italian autonomous region of Sardinia, the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea ....

 a comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

in the Province of Cagliari

Province of Cagliari

Cagliari is a province in the autonomous island region of Sardinia in Italy. Its capital is the city of Cagliari.It has an area of 4,470 km², and a total population of 543,310 . There are 71 comuni in the province....

 on the island of Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

 in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

The base is a front-line NATO training facility primarily used since 1979 for Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT) of various NATO air force fighter aircraft.

History

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 Decimomannu Airfield was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force 319th Bombardment Group, which flew B-26 Marauder

B-26 Marauder

The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe....

 medium bombers from the field between 1 November 1943 and 21 September 1944.

Facilities

The airport resides at an elevation

Elevation

The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....

 of 100 feet (30 m) above mean sea level. It has two asphalt

Asphalt

Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...

 paved runway

Runway

According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...

s: 17L/35R measuring 2990 by 45 m (9,809.7 by 147.6 ) and 17R/35L measuring 2611 by 23 m (8,566.3 by 75.5 ).