Ørland’s runway lies on the flat, farmed peninsula at the mouth of the Trondheimsfjord, about 2 km north-west of Brekstad. Store norske leksikon, in an entry written by Ole Jørgen Maaø of the Norwegian Defence University College, states plainly that the airfield was begun by the German occupation forces during the Second World War and expanded afterwards in several stages, partly with NATO infrastructure money. The Norwegian-language Wikipedia, used here only as a finding aid, dates the start of construction to March 1941 and says the work ran until 1944.

The peninsula mattered to the Germans because Trondheim was to become the Kriegsmarine’s main base in the north. A few kilometres from the airfield they built Austrått fort, mounting a 28 cm triple turret taken from the battlecruiser Gneisenau; work on the gun began in the spring of 1942 and it first fired in September 1943. Store norske leksikon records that the labour force included Serbian and Soviet prisoners of war and that several dozen prisoners died there or during the construction. Wikipedia makes similar claims about prisoners building the airfield itself, with figures this page could not corroborate, so they are not repeated here.

Norwegian forces took over the airfield on 9 October 1945, according to the Norwegian Wikipedia, and it then lay nearly idle until 1951. Rebuilding began in April that year: the runway was relaid and lengthened from 1,600 to 2,300 m, and the station was brought up to NATO standard by June 1952. That sequence, a wartime German strip turned into an alliance airfield with alliance money, is the same one Store norske leksikon summarises in a single sentence, and it explains why Ørland has always been as much a NATO asset as a Norwegian one.

For most of its post-war life Ørland meant 338 Squadron. Teknisk Ukeblad, in its report on the squadron’s closure, records that it arrived from Sola in 1954 with five F-84 Thunderjets and reached its full complement of aircrew the same year. The Thunderjet was the first jet the Norwegian air force used in numbers: Store norske leksikon counts 206 delivered from 1951, six F-84Es and 200 F-84Gs, all gone by 1960.

The squadron then flew the F-86F Sabre, of which Norway had 115 between 1957 and 1967, and the Northrop F-5, of which 92 were bought from 1966. The dates on which 338 itself changed type are not given in the official or encyclopaedic sources consulted, so they are left out here. The F-16 arrived at Ørland in 1985; the Norwegian Wikipedia gives the date as 30 July 1985. For the next 34 years the station was one of the two F-16 bases, alongside Bodø.

The end came with the F-35. On 1 April 2019 the squadron was deactivated, about eighteen months after its 65th anniversary, and its remaining F-16s were handed to 331 Squadron at Bodø, which from then on held every operational Norwegian F-16. Teknisk Ukeblad reported that the fleet had averaged some 6,000 flying hours per aircraft. The last squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ivar Magne Stene, credited the ground crews who had kept the jets flying; the air force chief, Major General Tonje Skinnarland, said the F-16 community would remain a vital part of Norway’s capability until the F-35 took over.

Since 1983 Ørland has been a forward operating location of the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force, whose E-3A Sentry aircraft are based at Geilenkirchen in Germany. NATO’s own history of the site says work began in the spring of 1982, with the first construction meeting on 15 June 1982 and a planned completion date of 23 December 1983. Between 10 January and 11 February 1983 the first Norwegian technicians trained at Geilenkirchen.

The location was formally opened on 2 November 1983. The next day Major Gudmund Taraldsen of the Royal Norwegian Air Force landed NATO aircraft LX-N 79446, the first E-3A to touch down at Ørland. In 1984 the site joined its first exercise, Team Work, its VHF and UHF radios came into service and it took the call sign King Salmon. A memorandum of understanding between NATO and Norway followed on 26 September 1984, and a memorandum of agreement in October 1991.

NATO lists the operations the location has supported: Active Endeavour, the Balkans, Eagle Assist after the September 2001 attacks and Unified Protector over Libya in 2011, as well as Red Flag and Norwegian exercises such as Cold Response and NATO Tiger Meet. The E-3As are visitors, not residents; the permanent presence is the small Norwegian-manned ground organisation. The English Wikipedia claims Ørland is the only station on the Scandinavian peninsula with E-3A ground handling equipment; that claim is not repeated in NATO’s own text.

Choosing the F-35 in 2008 forced a second, harder decision: where to put it. The Chief of Defence recommended Ørland on 24 November 2011, and the government’s long-term plan, Et forsvar for vår tid, proposed a fighter organisation of two squadrons at a main base at Ørland, with a forward operating base at Evenes for quick reaction alert. The same plan stated that Bodø main air station would be closed. The Storting’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee reported on 7 June 2012 and the Storting voted on 14 June 2012.

The committee’s figures were substantial. Moving from F-16s at Bodø and Ørland to F-35s at Ørland with Evenes forward was costed at a total base investment of about NOK 5.1 billion. Operating the new fighter from Ørland would add about NOK 300 million a year once the fleet was in service, rising to about NOK 375 million with the Evenes alert base. Not everyone agreed on the north: a Christian Democrat member supported Ørland but wanted QRA and training in northern Norway kept at Bodø if possible.

The rebuilding that followed is listed on Forsvaret’s own page: a longer runway, new squadron buildings, maintenance facilities, hangars, accommodation, supply stores and sports and welfare buildings. Store norske leksikon gives the runway extension as 2,714 to 3,000 m; the national AIP lists a physical length of 3,278 m for runway 15/33, and the difference is not explained in the sources consulted. Work continues: Forsvarsbygg lists a NOK 145 million facility for the air defence battalion and new barracks for 230 personnel due in 2026.

The first F-35As reached Ørland on 3 November 2017. Initial operational capability followed in 2019, the year 338 Squadron closed, and the last two of Norway’s 52 aircraft were delivered in April 2025, making Norway the first partner nation to complete its programme of record. Today 132 Air Wing flies the type with the TTT, 331 and 332 Squadrons. The aircraft do not all sit at Ørland: some stand quick reaction alert at Evenes and some are used for pilot training in the United States.

Norway’s auditors have been blunt about the base. In 2019 the Office of the Auditor General examined fighter bases, base defence and air defence during the transition; the Ministry of Defence classified the report and the Storting dealt with it behind closed doors on 3 February 2020. The public follow-up, Dokument 3:9 of December 2023, found that the tent solution used for F-35s at Ørland met the security law’s protection requirements but gave little efficient operation (“gir lite effektiv drift”), that persistent shortages of people and skills meant full operational capability in 2025 would not be fully met, and that shortfalls in air defence and base defence reduced protection. It rated the ministry’s handling as strongly reprehensible.

The station also reshaped its municipality. Store norske leksikon notes that the air station is Ørland’s largest employer and sets the terms for land use and the local community, and that the population grew after the 2012 decision, though between 2010 and 2022 it grew more slowly than Trøndelag as a whole: 7.3 per cent against 11.4 per cent. This page could not find an official or reputable source for the noise-zone rules and home purchases linked to the F-35, and so does not give figures for them.

Ørland is part of the reception plan for American forces in central Norway. Under the Marine Corps Prepositioning Program – Norway, reorganised after 2004, equipment for a US Marine force is held at eight sites around the Trondheimsfjord: six rock halls and the air stations at Værnes and Ørland, where, Teknisk Ukeblad reported in 2016, the United States stores equipment for air support. Store norske leksikon adds that under the 2021 Supplementary Defence Cooperation Agreement and its 2024 amendment, Ørland is one of 12 agreed areas where designated parts of the station are available for unhindered US use.

American aircraft have used it. In February 2021 four B-1B Lancers of the 9th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas arrived at Ørland, the first B-1 deployment to Norway, and flew sorties over the Arctic, one of them with B-2s. The War Zone later reported that one bomber suffered engine damage serious enough to need both engines on one side replaced; its sources said a tablet computer had been ingested. The 7th Bomb Wing confirmed the damage but gave no cause while the investigation was open.

NATO has used the station as a laboratory as well as a runway. The alliance’s first Unified Vision trial of joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, testing how sensors and data from many nations could be joined up, was held at Ørland in 2012, and later editions grew from that single-site start. A 330 Squadron rescue helicopter detachment has been on the station since the squadron was re-formed in 1973 and now flies three AW101 SAR Queens, which belong to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.