Powidz lies about 24 kilometres south-east of Gniezno, in the lake country of Greater Poland. The airfield is a post-war creation: the local municipality describes a large strategic airfield built by the Soviets after the Second World War for the largest aircraft of their air force, and an aviation history site dates its opening as a Soviet intermediate base to 1955. The garrison passed to the Polish armed forces in the mid-1950s. A 38th Fighter Aviation Regiment was ordered formed there on 30 April 1956 but soon moved to Modlin.

The unit that defined Powidz arrived on 4 July 1957, when the 7th Bomber Aviation Regiment flew in from Modlin with Ilyushin Il-28 jet bombers. It traced its roots to the 7th Independent Dive Bomber Regiment of January 1946 and had moved six times before settling here. The 33rd Bomber Regiment also came from Modlin, and in 1958 the Il-28s of the disbanded 35th regiment were added. Poland took 73 combat Il-28s, 16 UIl-28 trainers and 9 reconnaissance Il-28Rs between 1952 and 1957, and ten were later converted for electronic reconnaissance and jamming.

The regiments were reorganised repeatedly, and the accounts do not agree on when. The municipality says the 33rd was dissolved into the 7th Bomber Aviation Brigade in 1968; an aviation history site dates the brigade to 1963. It became the 7th Operational Reconnaissance Aviation Brigade in 1973 and the 7th Bomber-Reconnaissance Aviation Brigade in 1976. For parades the Il-28 crews flew set pieces: 36 aircraft in diamonds over Warsaw on 22 July 1959, and 33 Il-28s forming a stylised eagle for the millennium of the Polish state in 1966. Il-28 flying training ended on 30 December 1977.

The Il-28 was replaced by the Sukhoi Su-20, the export version of the Soviet Su-17 variable-geometry fighter-bomber. A group of Polish pilots trained at Krasnodar in early 1974; one of them, Captain Tadeusz Kołodziejczyk, was killed there. On 26 April 1974 the first six Su-20s landed at Powidz, which became the only Polish base for the type. Sources differ on the total: the municipality says 27 were delivered, an aviation history site says 25 and no two-seaters. The reason for the gap is not explained in either.

The Su-20 was a demanding aircraft to fly. Its Polish accident list has ten entries, four of them fatal if the pilot killed in Soviet training is counted, before the last Polish Su-20 flight at the end of February 1997; the remaining aircraft went to Bydgoszcz to be dismantled and the last was struck off in 1998. The more capable Su-22M4 and two-seat Su-22UM3K followed from the mid-1980s: one account gives the first deliveries to Powidz as August to October 1984, another dates them to 1985.

The Su-22 flew ground attack and, with KKR-1 pods, day and night reconnaissance, trained to operate from road strips, and was, the history site notes, a potential carrier of tactical nuclear weapons. On 15 July 1999, after Poland joined NATO, the 7th Bomber-Reconnaissance Regiment was ordered reorganised, and on 1 January 2000 its place was taken by the 21st Air Base with the 6th and 7th Tactical Aviation Squadrons. The 6th moved to Poznań-Krzesiny for the F-16 in 2006, and the last Su-22 training at Powidz ended on 5 February 2008, when the aircraft went to Świdwin.

The end of the jets at Powidz coincided with the Air Force’s decision to concentrate its transport aviation there. The 3rd Transport Aviation Brigade was set up with its headquarters at Powidz on 1 April 2007 and renamed the 3rd Air Transport Wing on 1 January 2009. A new 14th Transport Aviation Squadron formed at Powidz in 2007 with PZL M28 Bryza light transports, eight of them by 2009. The airfield was modernised in 2008–2009 for a much bigger aircraft.

That aircraft was the C-130E Hercules. Poland received five ex-US Air Force C-130Es, built around 1970 and refurbished in the United States, under the Foreign Military Financing programme. Polska Zbrojna lists the arrivals: 1501 on 24 March 2009, 1502 on 26 April 2010, 1503 on 16 November 2010, 1504 on 16 September 2011 and 1505 on 23 July 2012. The first came from Waco, Texas. The Air Force commander, General Andrzej Błasik, called the five aircraft significant support for the service’s transport aviation.

On 1 July 2010 the station was renamed the 33rd Air Transport Base, and the 14th squadron’s aircraft and people were absorbed into it. Accounts differ on the previous renaming, from 21st to 33rd Air Base: the municipality gives 19 April 2001, the aviation history site 1 January 2002. The number of the Hercules squadron today is not confirmed by an official text; Defence24 has called it the 14th.

By March 2019 the five C-130Es had flown more than 10,000 hours, according to Defence24. They supported Polish contingents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chad and Kuwait, supported French forces in the Central African Republic, flew diplomatic evacuations from Libya and Iraq, carried flood aid to Albania in 2010 and earthquake aid to Nepal in 2015. Polska Zbrojna says Polish Hercules have landed on every continent, from Mali to Vietnam and the United States.

The fleet has not been trouble-free. On 5 February 2010 one of the C-130Es made an emergency landing at Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan after most of the cockpit instruments, including the artificial horizon, lost power. The State Commission on Aircraft Accident Investigation found that the crew was not to blame; PAP reported that the aircraft was seriously damaged and later used for spare parts at Powidz.

In April 2021 Poland signed for five more Hercules, C-130Hs, again as US Excess Defense Articles: the aircraft were free and Poland paid about 14 million dollars for their overhaul. They are about 15 years younger than the E-models and have Allison T56-A-15 engines of 4,591 horsepower. The Armament Inspectorate expected the first in 2021; the first two actually arrived in July and October 2022, and the third landed at Powidz in December 2023. Maintenance is done by Military Aviation Works No. 2 in Bydgoszcz. Later deliveries were not confirmed by the sources read for this page.

In 2011 the Air Force formed the 7th Special Operations Squadron to fly Mi-17 helicopters for the special forces. It was a hybrid: under special forces command for operations and Air Force command for training. Polska Zbrojna described crews of two pilots, a technician and two gunners, flying at night as low as 10 metres, with unguided rockets, 23mm cannon, a Minigun and PK machine guns. In the Anakonda-16 exercise the squadron flew a hostage-rescue scenario with GROM and special forces from four other countries.

On 1 February 2023 the squadron was replaced by the Special Operations Air Unit (Powietrzna Jednostka Operacji Specjalnych), commanded at its formation by Lieutenant Colonel Piotr Ciechan. It answers to the 3rd Air Transport Wing in peacetime and to the Special Forces Component Command on operations. The reason was scale: the old squadron had been certified to command at most six air elements, while Poland had committed to lead a NATO Special Operations Air Task Group, with certification planned for May 2023 ahead of NATO Response Force duty in 2024.

The new unit was built as a headquarters with modular air groups, each carrying the elements needed for a mission, and Polska Zbrojna said further aircraft types were expected beyond the Mi-17. To fill it, the unit recruited experienced helicopter pilots, mainly from the Army’s 25th Air Cavalry Brigade and 1st Land Forces Aviation Brigade. Its predecessor’s pilots, the magazine noted, typically came from line units with service in Iraq, Afghanistan or Africa.

US Army aviation has rotated through Powidz since at least May 2017, when the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade began arriving with Black Hawk, Apache and Chinook helicopters; Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, then commanding US Army Europe, described it as the hub for northern Europe and the Baltics. In March 2019 NATO’s Security Investment Program agreed to pay for a US Army equipment depot at Powidz. Defense News put the cost at 260 million dollars; other reports use about 210 million, and the difference is not explained.

The first equipment, 14 M1A2 Abrams tanks and an M88 recovery vehicle, arrived by rail on 27 June 2024, and the Army Field Support Battalion-Poland uncased its colours on 18 September 2024. The US Army calls the site NATO’s most significant single infrastructure project in 30 years. Stocked, it lets an armoured brigade deploy in one to two weeks instead of 60 days. A bulk fuel storage facility was opened on 25 September 2025.

Poland is also building for the United States under the 2020 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. The Military Property Agency lists a DABS warehouse complex of more than 200,000 cubic metres, fuel storage of several million litres, housing for US troops and one of Europe’s largest helicopter aprons. The DABS complex opened on 27 May 2026. In September 2026, with the government seeking a permanent US base, the local press reported Wrocław and Oleśnica as leading candidates, with Powidz to remain a logistics hub.