Zaragoza grew out of the 1953 Pact of Madrid, signed on 23 September, under which the United States gained the use of air bases at Torrejón, Zaragoza and Morón. Existing Spanish airfields were expanded for the US Sixteenth Air Force, and the base was built in 1954. The first American flying unit, the 431st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, moved in on 3 September 1958. It flew F-86D Sabres and then F-102A Delta Daggers to defend the Strategic Air Command bomber and tanker bases in Spain.

The SAC era was short. B-47 rotational alert at the Spanish bases ended in April 1965, and the 431st was inactivated on 18 May 1964 as the B-47 left service and SAC handed its Spanish refuelling bases to US Air Forces in Europe. Zaragoza then went quiet until February 1970, when Project Creek Step rebuilt it as a USAFE weapons-training base. From March 1970 fighter squadrons from across Europe rotated through it to drop practice bombs on the Bardenas Reales range, and on 21 July 1972 the 406th Tactical Fighter Training Wing was activated to run the site.

Under the 406th the base became a crossroads. F-4 Phantoms were the main visitors; F-111s and A-7s used the range in 1974, and F-16 detachments followed from 1982. Dissimilar air combat training began on 12 September 1977, and a permanent SAC KC-135 tanker detachment was maintained from November 1976. The end came with the defence agreement signed in Madrid on 1 December 1988, which names Zaragoza only for the Rota–Zaragoza fuel pipeline. US use of the range ended in December 1991, base operations passed to Spain in April 1992, and the wing was inactivated on 31 October 1992.

Dates for the American departure differ. Wikipedia’s English base article gives 1958–1992, the Spanish articles and GlobalSecurity give 1994, and the Spanish base article adds that the Spanish state resumed full sovereign control of the military installations only on 12 February 2004. The flying presence probably ended in 1992 with residual facilities kept longer; no official source confirming either date was found this run.

Much of Zaragoza’s value lies about 70 km to the north-west in the semi-desert of the Bardenas Reales in Navarre. The shooting and bombing range there was set up in 1951 under a rental contract between the Spanish state and the Comunidad de Bardenas, the local body that owns the land. It covers 2,244 hectares, about 5.4 per cent of the Bardenas, and is excluded from the natural park that surrounds it.

The first contract ran for 25 years. It was extended in 1976 to June 2001, then to 2008, and since 2008 it has run in renewable ten-year terms. Between exercises, livestock may graze around its edges. The 406th wing’s whole reason for existing was to give USAFE squadrons access to this range, and it remains the main air-to-ground training ground for Spanish fighter units, including the Hornets of Ala 15 and Ala 12.

The range is contested. The air force says it uses practice bombs containing no explosive; Milagros Rubio of the Asamblea Antipolígono, the local campaign against the range, disputes this and says bombs with a charge are dropped at least once a year. Both claims are reported here as each side makes them. The range has also cost aircraft and lives: an Ala 12 Hornet pilot was killed there in November 1991, and Ala 15 lost an aircraft to a bird strike there in 1994 (see incidents).

Spain chose the F/A-18 under the FACA (Futuro Avión de Caza y Ataque) programme to replace its Mirage IIIs, F-5s and F-4 Phantoms. The contract was signed on 31 May 1983 for 72 aircraft, 60 single-seat EF-18As and 12 two-seat EF-18Bs, at a cost Spanish Wikipedia puts at about 3 billion dollars with 2 billion in industrial offsets. Ala 15 was created at Zaragoza on 16 December 1985 by Circular Order 04/85-DOR, and the first four EF-18s arrived in a direct flight from the United States on 10 July 1986; a specialist blog says all four were two-seat EF-18Bs.

The wing flew its first exercise with other units on 23 October 1986, and five days later King Juan Carlos I flew in one of its Hornets. On 14 January 1989 it joined the national air alert service. Its arrival was not painless at home: the official history records that personnel of Grupo 41, which already occupied the base, resisted being moved; Grupo 41 went to Matacán and lives on as 741 Escuadrón. In 1989 the wing was reduced to Grupo 15 and merged with Grupo 31 into Ala 31, before being re-established as Ala 15 on 9 December 2002.

Ala 15 has three squadrons. 151 Escuadrón, call sign Toro, formed with the first aircraft in 1986 and swapped its tiger badge for a bull in 1996. 152 Escuadrón, call sign Marte, was created in June 1988. 153 Escuadrón, call sign Ebro, is the conversion unit and carries a badge dating back to the Civil War fighter school. The wing numbers about 500 people. Its motto, “Quien ose paga” (Who dares, pays), was chosen personally by the base commander, Colonel Ostos.

The Hornets were rebuilt by a mid-life update from about 2007 to January 2012; a specialist blog counts 67 of the 72 original aircraft converted to EF-18M standard, the last in September 2013. Their successor is not settled. Halcón II, 25 Tranche 4+ Eurofighters (21 single-seat, 4 two-seat), was signed on 20 December 2024 to replace mainland Hornets, and the same blog says they will probably go to Ala 12 and Ala 15. No official source seen this run assigns them to Zaragoza.

In July 1994 Ala 15 went to Red Flag at Nellis in Nevada, the first Spanish unit to take part. From December 1994 it flew over Bosnia-Herzegovina and later Kosovo under NATO operations Deny Flight and Allied Force. 151 Escuadrón was certified NATO Combat Ready in November 2000 and 152 Escuadrón on 22–24 September 2010. From 3 July to 18 October 2011 the wing flew in Operation Unified Protector over Libya from Decimomannu in Sardinia.

Air policing followed: the Baltic from May to September 2017 in Estonia and from May to November 2020 in Lithuania, and NATO’s Air Shielding mission from Feteşti in Romania from November 2022 to March 2023. The official history also records how the Balkans shaped its call signs: after a French Mirage 2000 flying as “Ebro 3” was shot down over Bosnia in 1995, the call signs of units taking part were changed.

The tiger on Ala 15’s badge was inherited from the F-86 Sabres of Ala 5. That made the wing a natural candidate for the NATO Tiger Association, founded in 1961, which it joined in 2008; Wikipedia lists Ala 15 and 142 Escuadrón of Albacete as the two Spanish full members. In May 2016 Zaragoza hosted NATO Tiger Meet 2016, the third Tiger Meet held in Spain after Albacete in 1992 and 2006.

A Shuttle that lost an engine in the first minutes after launch could either turn back to Florida or, a little later, fly on across the Atlantic and land in Europe or Africa. This transoceanic abort landing, or TAL, would have come about 25 to 30 minutes after lift-off. NASA says Zaragoza was designated a TAL site in 1983 and was the primary site for high-inclination launches,.

NASA fitted runway 30L with Shuttle-specific visual landing aids, a microwave landing system, a TACAN beacon and a remote weather tower, and kept sole use of a hangar complex for operations and storage. A contractor was stationed permanently at Zaragoza to maintain the NASA and Defense Department equipment. For each launch, two C-130s would deliver eight crew, nine pararescuemen, two flight surgeons, a nurse, a medical technician and 2,500 pounds of medical equipment to Zaragoza, Istres, or both.

Zaragoza was one of the last four TAL sites, with Istres in France, Morón and RAF Fairford. The abort mode was never used in the history of the programme, which ended in 2011. NASA gives runway 30L as 12,109 ft by 197 ft (about 3,691 m by 60 m); the current Spanish AIP gives 3,718 m by 45 m; the difference is left as published.

Zaragoza is also the home of Ala 31, Spain’s tactical transport and tanker wing. Spain bought the C-130H in 1972 as the situation in the Spanish Sahara worsened; the first arrived on 18 December 1973, three KC-130H tankers were bought in January 1976, and more followed in 1979–1980. On 28 May 1980 the first aircraft, T.10-01, crashed on Gran Canaria and its entire crew was killed; the unit it was flying for is not stated in the source.

Until the end of 2020 Ala 31 flew six C-130Hs and one stretched C-130H-30 in 311 Escuadrón and five KC-130H tankers in 312 Escuadrón. The Hercules went in December 2020, the last six sold to Uruguay and Peru. Their replacement was the Airbus A400M. Spain ordered 27 on 27 May 2003; the budget rose from 3.453 billion euros to 5.493 billion by 2010 and the remaining 13 deliveries were pushed back to 2025–2030.

Wikipedia dates the A400M’s service entry to November 2016, while a specialist blog gives the first arrival at Zaragoza as December 2016. By February 2026, 14 had been delivered; the blog splits them into nine T.23 transports and five TK.23 tankers, with call signs Dumbo and Mamut, and expects six more around 2029. The same blog records A400Ms in the Kabul evacuation of August 2021, four in the Sudan evacuation of April 2023 and a Beirut evacuation in October 2024.