The United States reached Talara before the Peruvian jets did. English Wikipedia’s article on the town’s civil airport, drawing on US Air Force Historical Research Agency records, says the first American forces arrived on 8 March 1942 and began building barracks in August. The 397th Bombardment Squadron flew LB-30 and B-24A Liberators and A-17As from there from 18 August 1942 to 4 May 1943, the 51st Fighter Squadron’s P-40 Warhawks from December 1942 to 9 March 1943, the 3rd Bombardment Squadron from 1 April to 23 May 1943 and the 91st Reconnaissance Squadron’s B-25s and F-10s in 1943–44. The last aircraft left in July 1944, and a communications squadron stayed until 31 January 1947.

That wartime field is today’s civil airport, Cap. FAP Víctor Montes Arias; the air force’s El Pato lies 4.5 km to the north-east. Zona Militar writes that the Talara air base was built by the United States in the Second World War to protect the Panama Canal; the sources checked do not settle whether El Pato itself dates from then or was built later.

In 1955 Peru received 26 US-built F-86F Sabres and gave them to Escuadrón Aéreo 111 of Grupo Aéreo No. 11 at Talara. They served until 1979, a quarter of a century. By then the group had changed suppliers: Peru, after its 1968 military coup, bought Soviet equipment, and from 1977, according to Zona Militar, Talara housed Russian and Soviet combat aircraft — Su-22 fighter-bombers for more than 25 years, then Su-25 attack aircraft. Peru was the only operator of the Su-22 in the Americas; the type was retired in 2006, with eleven kept in reserve.

Today English Wikipedia lists Escuadrón Aéreo 112 “Tigres” at Talara with the Su-25UB, while Spanish Wikipedia lists Peru’s Su-25s with Escuadrón 711 at Piura; Zona Militar reported Su-25s flying from El Pato in 2023, and in 2024 about ten being kept operational through a SEMAN–Sukhoi recovery project. Zona Militar also reports that the base hosts the S-125 Neva/Pechora, the most powerful air defence system in the air force.

On 24 April 1992, nineteen days after President Alberto Fujimori’s self-coup, Peruvian Su-22s intercepted a US Air Force C-130H of the 310th Airlift Squadron at sea north-west of Lima and fired on it. Master Sergeant Joseph C. Beard Jr. was sucked out of the cabin at 18,500 feet and killed, and six of the 14 crew were injured. The damaged aircraft landed at a Peruvian Air Force base near Talara, where the crew was initially detained. The account is English Wikipedia’s, citing Newsweek; Peru’s official account was not found.

Three years later, during the Cenepa war with Ecuador, the Su-22 force flew 45 sorties into the combat zone and lost two aircraft on 10 February 1995 — to Ecuadorian Mirage F1s by Ecuador’s account, to anti-aircraft fire and an engine failure by Peru’s. According to Air Forces Monthly (March 2006), as cited by Wikipedia, a 20-strong force of Su-22s was established at El Pato as a retaliatory force should Ecuador decide to attack the coastal port. Ecuador did not.

In mid-2023, during Resolute Sentinel 23, four A-10C Thunderbolt IIs of the US Air Force Reserve’s 47th and 76th squadrons operated from El Pato. Zona Militar described the combined close air support missions they flew with Peruvian Su-25s and KT-1P Toritos, one A-10 acting as forward air controller, as a historic first for training.

The next idea was bigger. After Peru signed the Artemis Accords at NASA headquarters in late May 2024, the Ministry of Defence promoted turning the Talara base into a spaceport, with an investment of about S/1,000 million to be offered through PROINVERSIÓN, Zona Militar reported in July 2024. In November 2024 the Commander General, General del Aire Carlos Enrique Chávez Cateriano, told Zona Militar that an agreement had been signed with the US Space Force for a launch station at Talara and that the project could be ready by 2028 or 2030. In August 2026 Zona Militar noted that the plan could require a reconfiguration of the military activities historically carried out there.