Before the war the north-east was a stop for French air mail and the Italian airline LATI, which flew to Brazil until around the time of Pearl Harbor. Once Brazil joined the Allies, the airfield at Parnamirim became the western end of the South Atlantic air route to West Africa, and from there to North Africa, Europe and Asia. English Wikipedia says the field was used between 1943 and 1945 by the Brazilian Air Force, the US Army, the US Navy, the Royal Air Force and commercial airlines, with the US Army Forces in the South Atlantic building the maintenance and security installations.

Poder Aéreo, reporting on the base’s 82nd anniversary in 2024, put the traffic at about 19,000 large aircraft, mostly American and British, and listed its tasks: maritime patrol, convoy escort and logistic support for Allied troops in Africa and Europe. The US Navy also set up a naval air base on the banks of the Potengi river, with a concrete ramp to bring flying boats ashore, for anti-submarine patrols over the South Atlantic.

Natal’s importance brought the two presidents. On 28–29 January 1943 Getúlio Vargas and Franklin D. Roosevelt met aboard USS Humboldt in the Potengi, in talks that led to the creation of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force. The nickname ‘Trampoline to Victory’ survives in the Trampolim da Vitória cultural centre in Parnamirim, which in 2025 received a 1:350 diorama of the wartime ramp, first shown at the base on 7 April 2025.

Natal’s main peacetime job is to turn new pilots into combat pilots. The Joker squadron, the first in the air force to fly the A-29 Super Tucano, trains fighter pilots; the Rumba squadron trains transport and patrol pilots on the C-95 Bandeirante; and the Gavião squadron trains helicopter pilots on the H-50 Esquilo.

On 14 December 2023 the Commander of the Air Force, Lt Brig. Marcelo Kanitz Damasceno, presided over the graduation of 89 combat pilots of the Anubis class: 21 for fighters, 45 for transport, 11 for helicopters and 10 for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, plus two foreign officers from Uruguay and Paraguay. Poder Aéreo reported more than 11,000 flight hours flown in the year’s course.

The base was shared with Natal’s civil airport, Augusto Severo, until 31 May 2014, when commercial flights moved to the new airport at São Gonçalo do Amarante and the field passed fully to the air force. Training traffic has its cost: in 2018 residents of Parnamirim complained to the press about aircraft noise.

It has had a human cost too. English Wikipedia, drawing on the Aviation Safety Network, lists a C-47 crash at Natal on 25 March 1961 in which only five of the 28 on board survived, and two Bandeirante losses in 1977: one crashed on landing on 23 April, and on 3 July another crashed after take-off, killing all 18 occupants. These were transport and training aircraft of the kind the base still flies every day.

CRUZEX, the Cruzeiro do Sul exercise, began at Canoas in 2002 and moved to Natal in 2004. Natal has hosted it in 2004, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2018 and 2024. English Wikipedia says the 2013 edition involved about 90 aircraft. The 2024 edition, from 3 to 15 November, brought more than 2,000 personnel; Poder Aéreo, quoting the air force, reported more than 100 aircraft from 15 nations, while the sources cited by Wikipedia give more than 50 aircraft from 16 countries including observers.

CRUZEX 2024 was the first multinational exercise for the Gripen E anywhere: the 1st Air Defence Group brought seven F-39Es from Anápolis. In February 2026 Natal hosted Operation Thor, in which an F-39E dropped the 925 kg MK 84 bomb and a laser-guided MK 82 on 11 flights, which Saab described as a first for the Gripen. On 3 December 2025 the air force authorised six Argentine F-16s, on their delivery flight from Denmark, to land at Natal; they left for Río Cuarto on 5 December.