Howard Air Force Base - Overview

Overview

The base was located 6 mi southwest of Balboa, at the southern (Pacific) end of the Panama Canal. Most of the area around it was uninhabited (part of the Panama Canal Zone watershed), though Panama City could be reached by crossing the nearby Bridge of the Americas.

For over 50 years, Howard Air Force Base was the bastion of US air power in Central and South America. In its heyday, it was the center for counterdrug operations, military and humanitarian airlift, contingencies, joint-nation exercises, and search and rescue. It was the busy hub of Air Force operations in Latin America, boasting fighters, cargo planes, tankers, airborne warning and control system planes, "executive" jets, and search and rescue helicopters. It was also the home of a host of army and navy aircraft. Its people tracked drug traffickers out of South America, and its cargo planes provided airlift for US Southern Command contingencies, exercises, and disaster relief, and conducted search and rescue in the vast region. Yet only the C-27 Spartan transports, several special-mission C-130s, and executive jets belonged to the host unit, the 24th Composite Wing, later redesignated the 24th Wing (24 WG). Although Regular Air Force C-130 aircraft rotated to Howard for 90-day detachments in the 1970s and early 1980s, in the support mission called CORONET OAK, this mission was later transferred to the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard, which then provided C-130s for CORONET OAK, as well as A-7 Corsair and later F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters that also rotated into the base.