Apiay’s origins lie in the jungle. English Wikipedia says the unit began in 1933 as an air base at San José del Guaviare, one of the posts set up after the war with Peru, and moved in December 1947 to the village of Apiay, 12 km from Villavicencio. The service’s own history, as summarised by English Wikipedia, gives the reason: during La Violencia the air force needed to extend its radius of action over the eastern plains, so the national aerodrome of Apiay was created in 1947 and named Base Aérea de Apiay on 17 November 1948.

The base grew in stages. It trained pilots on the AT-6 Texan and T-34 Mentor from 1956, became a main base with B-26 Invaders in 1959, took the name of Captain Luis Francisco Gómez Niño in 1961 and received its first jets, T-33s and T-37s, in 1972, when it became the headquarters of Combat Air Command No. 2. A sobering date belongs to its early years: on 8 September 1969 a SATENA C-47, FAC-685, crashed near the base and all 32 people on board were killed, according to English Wikipedia.

Colombia bought 25 Embraer Super Tucanos for US$234 million. The first three landed in Bogotá on 14 December 2006 and the last in June 2008, and on 18 January 2007 Colombian Super Tucanos flew the first combat mission of the type anywhere, attacking FARC positions with Mk 82 bombs. At Apiay they equip Escuadrón de Combate 211 ‘Grifos’, alongside the AT-27 Tucanos of 212 and the gunships and helicopters of 213.

English Wikipedia’s Super Tucano article describes the strike it calls Operation Armagedón: nine Super Tucanos from Apiay attacked the camp of the FARC’s 27th Front at Vista Hermosa, Meta, on coordinates from an informant recruited by police intelligence, dropping 40 guided 500-lb bombs in three minutes and killing 36 rebels. The date is not given there, and the casualty figure has not been checked against an official Colombian or independent source. The same article credits 25 Super Tucanos with dropping seven tonnes of explosives in Operation Sodoma in Meta on 22 September 2010, in which the FARC commander Mono Jojoy was killed; it does not say from which base they flew.

Apiay hosts a wide mix of aircraft. English and Spanish Wikipedia list four units: Escuadrón de Combate 211 ‘Grifos’ with the A-29B Super Tucano, 212 ‘Tucanos’ with the older AT-27 Tucano, Escuadrón de Combate Táctico 213 with a mix of AC-47T Fantasma gunships, AH-60L Arpía IV helicopters, C-212 and Cessna 208 transports and Schweizer and Citation surveillance aircraft, and, in Spanish Wikipedia only, Escuadrón 217 ‘Quimera’ with Elbit Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 drones.

The gunships are the oldest airframes on the base. Infodefensa counts six AC-47Ts in Colombian service since 1986, re-engined from 1991 as Basler BT-67 turboprops, with FLIR sensors, GAU-19A heavy machine guns and illumination flares for night close air support. The squadron numbers, but not the number of aircraft at Apiay, are published; none is given here.

Apiay was one of the three air bases, with Palanquero and Malambo, that the US-Colombia defence cooperation agreement of 30 October 2009 opened to US personnel, according to the Constitutional Court’s list. On 17 August 2010 the Court ruled that the agreement was in substance a treaty and could have no effect until approved by Congress. English Wikipedia nevertheless says the base hosts US Army personnel taking part in training programmes under the Plan Colombia framework, against drug trafficking and armed groups. The scale and dates of that presence are not published in the sources checked, and no figures are given here.