The Botswana Defence Force’s air wing was formed with the BDF in April 1977, but its main base came almost two decades later. English Wikipedia, in both its Botswana Defence Force and Air Arm Command articles, says it was built by mostly foreign contractors between 1992 and 1996 as a multi-stage project, sometimes referred to as the "Eagle" project.

What was built is unusual for an air arm of Botswana’s size: runways and taxiways, extensive aircraft shelters and ordnance storage, a headquarters, and a large complex of living quarters and support buildings. Wikipedia lists two runways, 3,002 m and 2,007 m long. No cost and no list of contractors was found in any source reachable for this page, so neither is given here.

The base was finished in the year the first Canadair CF-5s arrived from Canada, in 1996, to replace the BAC Strikemasters bought after 1977, which were withdrawn in the late 1990s (Wikipedia’s CF-5 and Strikemaster articles).

Wikipedia’s order of battle puts six of the Air Arm Command’s eight numbered squadrons at Thebephatshwa. Z28 flies the CF-5, known locally as the BF-5; Z10 the transports, the C-130 Hercules, C-212 Aviocar and CN235; Z7 the Pilatus PC-7 Mk II trainers and the Super King Air 200; Z21 the Bell 412 helicopters and Z23 the AS350 Écureuils. Z1 is listed as a transport squadron without a type.

Only two squadrons are elsewhere: Z3 (liaison) and Z12 (transport) at Francistown, and the VIP flight at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. Wikipedia also says the Spanish company Indra won a 7.1 million euro contract in 2005 for a national air defence command and control system with nine tracking and control posts; where its centre is was not published.

These assignments are Wikipedia’s; the BDF does not publish its own order of battle, and defenceWeb’s reporting confirms only Z10 by name.

In July 2018 the defence minister, Shaw Kgathi, told Parliament that the air wing had lost nine aircraft in ten years, with six people killed and six injured, and that six of the crashes were put down to pilot error, according to defenceWeb. One of them happened here: in February 2017 a CASA C-212-300 crashed soon after take-off from Thebephatshwa, killing all three crew. It was replaced by a second-hand C-212-400 from the United States, in service by 2018.

The Hercules fleet is the clearest sign of strain. When the United States handed over C-130H OM4 at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport on 27 June 2024, the Chief of Air Arm Command, Maj. Gen. Hendrick Thuthu Rakgantswana, told defenceWeb that Z10 Squadron had been left with a single aircraft. In December 2025 defenceWeb still described the air arm’s fleet as ageing, revived mainly by American donations.