Grootfontein lies in Namibia’s north, and English Wikipedia records that its air base was formerly a South African Air Force base and that the town housed several units of the South African Defence Force, which left after independence. Wikipedia gives no dates or unit names for that period, and none were found in a reachable source, so this page does not list them.

When Namibia built its own air arm, it began small: the Namibian Defence Force’s Air Defence Wing was set up in 1994 and its first helicopters, Indian-built Cheetahs and Chetaks, were delivered at Eros Airport in Windhoek that December. The step up to a full service came at Grootfontein: on 13 March 2005, Wikipedia says, the Namibian Air Force was commissioned at Grootfontein Air Force Base, a year before its Chengdu F-7NM fighters officially entered service in June 2006.

Grootfontein served as the headquarters for the next decade. In March 2016 The Namibian reported that the headquarters, with the commander Martin Pinehas, had moved to the new base at Karibib, which the army spokeswoman Lt Col. Monica Sheya said was more centrally positioned. She would not say when the move took effect; Grootfontein remained operational.

In February 2014 the Tokwe-Mukosi basin in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo province flooded. The Namibian Air Force sent two Indian-built Alouette IIIs and a Harbin Z-9 from Grootfontein, with six pilots and seven technicians. The mission, first planned for five days, was extended; defenceWeb counted nine days of operations and 38.6 flying hours, and the crews lifted more than 600 people out of the basin, defenceWeb reported on 26 February 2014.

Air Vice Marshal Martin Pinehas framed it as repaying a debt: Zimbabwe’s air force had sent helicopters to Namibia’s Zambezi Region in the floods of 2006. Two helicopters returned to Grootfontein; the third went straight to flood-alert duty at Mpacha, the airport at Katima Mulilo in the Zambezi Region.

Two months later the base saw the other side of helicopter flying: on 11 April 2014 a Harbin Z-9 crashed during take-off at Grootfontein, Wikipedia records. No casualty figure was found in a reachable source.

Although the headquarters has gone to Karibib, Grootfontein is where the air force shows itself. On 16 December 2024 President Nangolo Mbumba accepted two Shaanxi Y-9E medium transports here. They had left China on 11 November and reached Namibia on 17 November, and their serials were chosen with care: NAF-1962 for the birth year of Air Marshal Martin Pinehas, the Chief of Defence Force, and NAF-1990 for the year of independence. Air Vice-Marshal Teofilus Shaende, the air force commander, said the aircraft would greatly enhance its airlift operations.

Six months later, on 2 June 2025, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah reviewed the Namibian Defence Force’s 35th anniversary parade at the base. defenceWeb listed a Y-9, three K-8s and two F-7s among the fixed-wing aircraft, and a Mi-24, a Cheetah, two Chetaks and a Z-9 among the helicopters, alongside ASN-209 drones and FB-6A air defence systems on the ground. Which of these aircraft are based at Grootfontein day to day is not published.