Espora sits near Bahía Blanca, in the same corner of Buenos Aires province as the Puerto Belgrano naval base. Wikipedia gives 16 June 1939 as the opening date and says the base takes its name from Tomás Espora, a naval officer who fought in the war of independence of 1810–1825.

The area was drawn into the coups of the 1950s. During the Revolución Libertadora of 16–23 September 1955, Wikipedia records fighting at the Puerto Belgrano naval base near Bahía Blanca during the rising that removed President Perón. The part Espora’s aircraft played in those days is not described in the sources read for this page.

Today the airfield is also Bahía Blanca’s airport. The Ministry of Transport lists it as a joint civil and military aerodrome, and Wikipedia’s infobox gives three asphalt runways, the longest 2,616 m.

Wikipedia describes Fuerza Aeronaval 2 at Espora as the command for embarked aircraft. The Navy’s first S-2A Trackers came on 31 May 1962, six of them, brought by the carrier Independencia, according to Zona Militar; six S-2Es followed in 1978. In December 1978 Trackers flew in the Beagle crisis with Chile, and in 1982 they started the war aboard Veinticinco de Mayo before moving ashore to Río Grande and Río Gallegos.

From 1993 the Trackers were re-engined in Israel under a project the Navy called TATA, and 2-AS-23 was the first converted. The same aircraft made the last Tracker flight: on 2 December 2025 the Navy retired it at Espora after more than 60 years of Tracker service. Zona Militar wrote in April 2026 that the P-3C Orion is now the Navy’s only aircraft with anti-ship and anti-submarine potential.

The Second Naval Fighter and Attack Squadron received the first five of 14 Super Étendards, with five Exocets, between August and November 1981. In 1982 four were operational and flew from Río Grande, according to Wikipedia. On 4 May Capitán de Corbeta Augusto Bedacarratz and Teniente de Fragata Armando Mayora hit HMS Sheffield; the Navy celebrates the date as its Naval Aviation Day. On 25 May two more Exocets struck the Atlantic Conveyor. On 30 May the last Exocet was fired at what Argentina says was HMS Invincible; Britain says no ship was hit.

The squadron’s later history is one of waiting. Zona Militar reported that the original aircraft had been grounded for more than a decade by 2025. Five Super Étendard Modernisé were bought from France for 12.5 million euros — the agreement was finalised in January 2018, according to Zona Militar — and arrived in 2019. Not one made a test flight in Argentina. The ejection seats’ cartridges could not be certified, and CITEDEF built a test rig to evaluate replacements.

On 28 March 2024 the Navy displayed 3-A-202, the Sheffield aircraft, beside SEM 44 at Espora. In May 2025 Zona Militar reported that the Navy was considering retirement, and in August 2026 Plan Dédalo confirmed it.

Espora’s busiest aircraft are helicopters. On 11 October 2022 two SH-3H Sea Kings, 2-H-244 and 2-H-245, arrived by sea at Bahía Blanca and were taken to the base after remanufacture by Carson Helicopters in the United States; Zona Militar puts the cost at 12,835,000 dollars from the national defence fund FONDEF. They joined the Second Naval Helicopter Squadron.

Every Antarctic summer a detachment sails on the icebreaker Almirante Irízar. In the 2025/26 campaign it flew about 200 hours over four months, supplying San Martín, Marambio, Orcadas, Belgrano II, Petrel and Esperanza with a group of 40 people. In April 2026 Argentine Sea Kings flew from the US carrier Nimitz during the Southern Seas exercise.

The fleet’s end is in sight but undated: Zona Militar reported on 20 August 2026 that Plan Dédalo would begin the Sea King retirement in 2027, and on 21 August that the Navy’s target was 2031, with no replacement chosen.