The attack battalion predates its base. According to BHELA I’s own history, Commander Benjamín Virgós Ortiz was appointed its first chief in January 1980, and its first helicopter, the Bo 105 ET-138 (HR.15 in Spanish service), arrived on 29 September 1980. For its first years the battalion lived provisionally at Los Remedios, the FAMET base at Colmenar Viejo.

In February 1983 it moved to Almagro, and on 26 April 1983 the new Base Coronel Sánchez Bilbao was inaugurated in a ceremony presided over by the Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Ramón de Ascanio y Togores. Spanish Wikipedia says Almagro was chosen for its central position, from which the battalion could reach any part of the peninsula quickly, and for airspace suitable for training with the anti-tank Bo 105.

By the early 1990s the battalion had 45 HR.15 and HA.15 Bo 105s, some fitted for flying with night-vision goggles. They served for more than three decades; the last Bo 105 flight at Almagro was in December 2017. The type also took the battalion abroad: three HR.15s flew with EUFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 3 December 2007 to 3 December 2008.

Spain chose the Tigre in 2003; a specialist blog links the decision partly to Eurocopter building a plant at Albacete. Almagro’s pilots went to France for training from 2005, and the first three Tigres, of the HAP escort and support version, arrived at the base on 14 April 2007. The battalion history dates the first HAD Block I, the definitive Spanish version, to 18 December 2014, the first Block II, ET-711, to 14 December 2016, and the completion of the fleet to 16 January 2020, when Airbus Helicopters España handed over ET-724 in the presence of the Secretary of State for Defence.

The Army data sheet gives the HA.28 two MTR390 engines, a 30 mm cannon with 450 rounds, up to four Mistral air-to-air missiles and up to 68 rockets of 68 mm, with a top speed of 175 knots. The six HAPs were retired around 2020–2021 and kept partly for spares, leaving 18 HADs. On 11 February 2022 Spain and France signed the agreement for the Tigre Mk III mid-life upgrade; the blog reports that the programme had passed its first milestones by February 2026 and expects deliveries between 2030 and 2035.

The money has followed slowly. The same blog records that the Council of Ministers approved the Mk III on 21 December 2021, that Airbus received the development contract in March 2022, and that on 5 December 2022 the government authorised a 707 million euro loan for the programme for 2022–2028. Until the upgraded aircraft arrive, Almagro keeps flying the 18 HADs it has: the whole of Spain’s attack helicopter force, on one base in La Mancha.

The Tigre’s first operation came at the end of Spain’s war in Afghanistan. From 17 March to 12 November 2013 three HA-28s from Almagro flew in Badghis and Herat, giving air support and reconnaissance to cover the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Qala-i-Naw to Herat. The battalion also sent people to UNIFIL in Lebanon from 19 September 2011 to 12 February 2012, and its history lists the 2002 Perejil operation among its domestic missions.

At home the battalion flew decontamination and reconnaissance missions in the COVID-19 operation Balmis from March 2020 and epidemiological surveillance in operation Baluarte from October 2020 to May 2021, and sent 142 people to the Valencia floods between November 2024 and January 2025.

In May 2025 the base sent its Tigres east. A specialist blog reports that two Tigres left Almagro on 25 May, joined an NH90 from Agoncillo and a Chinook from Colmenar Viejo at Zaragoza the next day, and reached Malacky air base in Slovakia on 28 May, with about 40 personnel, as the unit UHEL SVK. It flew exercises such as Strong Lineage 25 and 26, passed 500 flying hours on 5 December 2025 and 1,000 on 1 May 2026.