History
The construction work on Zaragoza Airport began in September 1954 with the enlargement and improvement of the existing Spanish Air Force Base located there. United States Navy engineers upgraded the facility for temporary or intermediate use as a war standby base. The first U.S. construction project included strengthening the existing 3,024 m (9,921 ft) runway and adding 304 m (1,000 ft) overruns at each end. Work on a new concrete runway, 61 by 3,718 metres (200 ft × 12,200 ft), with 61 m (200 ft) overruns at each end, began in 1956 and was completed in 1958. Zaragoza Air Base is an NASA Alternate Space Shuttle Landing Site to be chosen as a TAL site, an air base has to meet a number of requirements. For starters, its runway needs to be a minimum of 7,500 feet long. Not surprisingly, the weather around the base should typically be nice, as well. The base also must have a military-grade navigation system called a TACAN, which stands for Tactical Air Navigation, and be adaptable to special guidance devices NASA uses with the shuttles. In every Launch assent Listen the Cap-Con will say Zaragoza within the first 8 minutes of flight
Zaragoza was one of three major USAF Cold War airbases in Spain, the others being Torrejón Air Base near Madrid and Morón Air Base near Seville.
Read more about this topic: Zaragoza Air Base
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