When the Navy got aircraft again after 1953 it had nowhere of its own to fly them. The first Beechcraft D18S arrived at El Belloto, a civil aerodrome near Quilpué, on 21 October 1954, and the first helicopter was assembled there on 15 November. The Navy’s historians record that El Belloto was formally created as a naval air base on 5 September 1961, that the air force transferred the aerodrome to the Navy in October 1966, and that a new asphalt runway of 1,304 by 30 metres was opened on 23 April 1969.

El Belloto was where the Naval Aviation School was founded on 17 April 1979 and where the PC-7s, EMB-111s and Alouettes of the 1970s and 1980s were based. The new base at Torquemada, on the high ground above Concón, had its runway inaugurated on 19 December 1987, and on 13 September 1991 the Navy held its farewell ceremony at El Belloto after some 35 years.

In March 1993, eighteen months after the farewell, the first of eight P-3 Orions arrived.

The squadron that gives Concón its weight is VP-1, the maritime exploration squadron. The Navy received eight Orions, numbered 401 to 408, from March 1993; two were rebuilt by IMP Aerospace in Canada between 2017 and 2021 under Project Albatros IV, extending their lives beyond 15,000 flight hours, and three Airbus C295 Persuaders joined from April 2010. The Navy lists their roles as maritime exploration, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, transport, parachuting and medical evacuation.

In December 2024, in Campaign Hielo V, a VP-1 Orion staged through Punta Arenas and flew four Antarctic sorties totalling more than 50 hours with scientists of the Centro de Estudios Científicos and their ice-penetrating radar. It landed at the joint scientific station at Glaciar Unión, at 80 degrees south, alongside the Chilean Air Force; Rear Admiral Jorge Castillo later called it the first landing there by a naval military aircraft.

The Orions are old, and the Navy does not publish how many still fly. On 25 September 2026 Infodefensa reported that Chile would take four second-hand CP-140M Auroras from Canada from 2027, two of them coming to Concón first as an interim solution.

Concón is a base without fighters. Infodefensa’s 2023 history of naval aviation lists five squadrons: VP-1 for maritime exploration with Orions and C295s, VC-1 for general purpose work with EMB-111s and seven Vulcanair P68 Observer 2s, VT-1 for training with seven PC-7s of the ten delivered in 1980–1981, HA-1 with five AS332F1 Cougars and two Super Pumas, and HU-1 with Bo 105s, AS365 Dauphins and Airbus H125s. The Navy’s own page says these squadrons operate mainly from Concón.

Their work is mostly unglamorous: maritime patrol and policing of the exclusive economic zone, search and rescue for swimmers, sailors and ships, and support of the fleet, submarines and marines. The Cougars are the sharp end, with anti-ship and anti-submarine roles; the helicopters of HU-1 go to sea on the Navy’s ships, as an HH-65 did aboard OPV-84 Cabo Odger for the UNITAS exercise in Peru in September 2026.

Concón was built for civil and military use and has a small passenger terminal, but for most of its life it has been a naval field with occasional civil traffic. That is now changing. Ex-Ante reported on 11 November 2025 that Chile’s environmental evaluation service had recommended approval of a US$43.6 million project for a new passenger terminal, a longer runway, parking and new aeronautical buildings, all on Navy-owned land, with the Navy continuing to administer the airfield.

The forecasts given were 177 passengers in the peak hour, about 500,000 passengers a year by the mid-2030s and 900,000 by 2045. Construction was due to start in January 2026, with operations in early 2028 and airline flights expected around 2030–2031.

The first works began as planned. La Voz de Concón reported that the Ministry of Public Works awarded 3,836 million pesos to Pavimentos Quilín for nine months of repaving of the runway, taxiways and aprons and renovation of Navy hangars and DGAC offices from late January 2026, with a runway extension and a terminal to follow in later phases.